By Dan Ambrose: Earlier in his career, Sergio Martinez (51-2-2, 28 KO’s) fought a young Antonio Margarito in 2000 in a fight that Sergio was overwhelmed by Margarito’s high volume attack and taken out in 7 rounds of a mostly one-sided fight.
This was before Martinez had adopted a Roy Jones Jr. style of fighting that employs a lot of movement. Not long after his loss to Margarito, Sergio changed his fighting style to where it is now with him using movement, fast shots, and an in and out style of fighting to frustrate slow plodding type fighters.
“My loss to Margarito was probably the best thing that happened to me,” Martinez said. “It humbled me to realize that this is a serious sport and I needed to mature as a fighter and as a person. It also made me realize that I needed to change. I had to cut out the negative people that surrounded me at that time and find people that would be positive with my career.”
Martinez is fighting Miguel Cotto (38-4, 31 KO’s) on June 7th at Madison Square Garden in New York. Cotto is moving up in weight to try and capture a 4th division world title, and he thinks that the 39-year-old Martinez is now ready to be beaten. Cotto didn’t target Sergio until he struggled in his last fight against Martin Murray. Cotto obviously senses weakness in Sergio and thinks he’s vulnerable now at this point in his career. Cotto isn’t targeting WBA champion Gennady Golovkin. It’s likely that he sees Golovkin as being far too strong for him to try and win a 4th division world title against him.
This is Martinez’s chance to show that Cotto and his trainer Freddie Roach made a big mistake in picking him out to try and win another world title. Cotto isn’t moving up in weight to the middleweight division in order to fight at this new weight class. Cotto just wants to pick up the strap as a badge of honor for his legacy. In other words, Martinez is being used as a stepping stone for Cotto to win a trophy.
Comments are closed.