Sergio Martinez on the cusp of Retirement

By @James_theGrad - 05/22/2015 - Comments

martinez906By James Le Blanc IV: A few weeks ago I got a lot of reaction on Twitter when I tweeted “@Supplanter_IV Are #boxing fans appreciating Sergio Martinez more, clearly injured, lost to Miguel Cotto, gave Cotto all the credit didn’t say one word about injury.”

After his debatable decision loss to Paul Williams in late 2009 Sergio Martinez went on a tear through the middle weight division. He faced nothing but the best opponents including a vicious knockout victory in the rematch with Paul Williams, and the battering of Kelly Pavlik. Sergiy Dzinziruk had never been knocked down in his professional career, Martinez dropped him 5 times in route to an 8th round knockout.

If you haven’t yet seen Sergio Martinez’s documentary on Netflix called “Maravilla” it’s a must see, describing the little respect Martinez received from the WBC. He would later go on to fight Julio Chavez jr for the WBC middle weight crown he believed was rightfully his. Martinez did a number on the young undetermined Champion at the time and won an easy unanimous decision. In that fight Martinez suffered torn ligaments in his right knee and never really recovered. He fought Martin Murray next and didn’t really look impressive in that victory re-aggravating his already injured legs. He eventually faced Cotto and lost.

It was clear Sergio was a shot fight, never had his legs under him, and went into the Cotto match a shell of his former self. But after suffering the loss (Unlike Manny Pacquiao) Martinez had zero excuses and showed incredible sportsmanship to a fighter in Cotto that he never really liked. What’s even more incredible about Martinez and his outstanding run in the middleweight division is much like Cotto, Martinez was never a natural middle weight constantly giving up significant size to his opponents. Sergio Martinez was #1 on my p4p list for a couple of years during his extraordinary run and my favorite boxer to watch at the time. I believe he would have dismantled Gennady Golovkin during those prime years and he didn’t get anywhere near the respect Golovkin has been receiving while not yet actually taking on a challenging opponent.

My question is the same, are boxing fans appreciating Sergio Martinez more? Now that he is leaving the sport soon I don’t think we have and it’s a shame.

Follow me on twitter talking boxing @Supplanter_IV



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