By Manuel Perez: In a battle of unbeaten super flyweight contenders, Raul Martinez (24-0, 14 KOs) stopped Victor Proa (26-1-2, 19 KOs) in the 1st round of a scheduled 12-round bout at the New Alhambra, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Martinez, 26, caught Proa on the ropes early on and unloaded a blinding flurry of shots, hurting him badly twice and causing him to sag in between the ropes, helpless. The fight was then stopped by the referee at 1:08 of the first round with Proa standing but very hurt.
Martinez, a 2002 and 2003 United States Amateur flyweight champion, came out fast at the start of the bout, hitting a slower Proa with combinations to the head and hard right hands. After clocking Proa with two especially hard right hands, he backed up against the ropes and tried to fight Martinez off. However, by backing against the ropes, Proa made a calculated risk, which as it turns out, prevented him from being able to escape once he got hurt by Martinez with a right hand. Martinez staggered him with a big right hand, and then hit him with a storm of shots as Proa lay nearly defenseless against the ropes. After Martinez hit him with one final right hand, Proa sagged between the ropes completely out of it. The referee then moved in and halted the bout.
Proa, 23, ranked #8 in the World Boxing Organization and #12 in the World Boxing Association, appeared to have made too big of a leap up in competition by facing Martinez, as before this fight, Proa had fought largely C-class opponents, many of them with losing records. Indeed, in looking at Proa’s record, I can’t find one good B-class fighter, let alone an A-class opponent.
In hindsight, it probably would have been a wiser move for Proa to step up in class a little slower, taking on perhaps a good non-top tier fighter rather than the red hot Martinez. In a sense, it was like throwing Proa to the wolves, because he didn’t seem ready to say the least.
Martinez, for his part, is currently ranked #3 in the IBF, #4 in the WBO, #8 in the WBC and #9 in the WBA, and was coming off an impressive 12-round decision win over the tough Isidro Garcia in July. Previous to that, Martinez had good wins over Alex Baba and Benjamin Garcia, both decent fighters with good skills.