Thanks to all, I am retired. Gracias por todo, aquí termina una etapa de mi vida. Estoy oficialmente retirado. Hasta la victoria siempre.

— Sergio Martínez (@maravillabox) June 14, 2015

By Jim Dower: Former two division world champion Sergio Martinez (51-3-2, 28 KOs) has announced his retirement from boxing after sitting out of the ring for an entire year following a 10th round stoppage loss.

The 40-year-old Martinez didn’t say why he retired, but it’s pretty clear due to the problems with his right knee, which Martinez had two surgeries on. The knee is reportedly still giving Martinez problems and that’s why he’s been unable to fight.

Martinez originally hurt his knee in the Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. fight three years ago in 2012. After that fight, Martinez had surgery on his knee to repair the problem. However, while training for his April 2013 fight against Martin Murray, Martinez re-injured his right knee. Not wanting to cancel the fight, Martinez fought with the injury and was able to win a close 12 round decision. After the fight, Martinez had another surgery on his knee, and he stayed lout of the ring for over a year until he defended his title against Miguel Cotto last year in June.

With his mobility totally gone, Martinez was easy pickings for Cotto, who wound up stopping him in the 10th round after dropping him three times in the 1st round. In hindsight, Martinez shouldn’t have taken the fight with Cotto given the condition of his knee, but obviously was too good for Martinez to turn down.

Martinez had some memorable performances in his career against the likes of Paul Williams, Julio Cesar Chavez Jr., Kelly Pavlik, Matthew Macklin, and Serhiy Dzinziruk. Martinez was robbed of a victory in his fight against Kermit Cintron in 2009 in a fight in which Martinez knocked Cintron down and the referee ruled that the knockdown was from a head-clash. To make matters worse, the referee docked a point from Martinez in the 12th round for holding despite there being no warnings.

Martinez probably should have retired after his fight against Martin Murray in 2013, because his right knee was in bad shape at that point. By coming back to fight Cotto last year, Martinez looked like he was too injured to fight and that made it easy for Cotto to get the victory. A prime Martinez would have given Cotto nightmares, even this version of Cotto. It would have been a really tough fight for the Puerto Rican fighter.