Sergio Martinez vs. Peter Manfredo Jr. in July

By Boxing News - 03/19/2011 - Comments

by Chris Williams: The indications are strong that Sergio Martinez (47-2-2, 26 KO’s) will be fighting Peter Manfredo Jr. (37-6, 20 KO’s) next in July instead of a high profile opponent or one that can give him any kind of fight. Martinez and Manfredo Jr. share the same promoter and the talk is that he wants to have an in house fight between them, as long as HBO goes along with this fight and agrees to purchase it.

Martinez has certainly earned fighting a soft opponent after facing Paul Williams twice, Kermit Cintron, Kelly Pavlik and Sergiy Dzinziruk in his last five bouts. Manfredo is a huge step backwards for Martinez, but casual boxing fans might not care much because Manfredo Jr. is well known to them because of all the times he’s been shown on ESPN. He’s not a bad fighter. He does okay when matched against 2nd and 3rd tier opposition.

Where Manfredo Jr. falls apart is when he’s put in with world class fighters like Joe Calzaghe, Jeff Lacy, Sergio Mora and Sakio Bika. Mandredo has failed the test when put in with these kinds of guys. This fight will likely go one, maybe two rounds at best. If Martinez opens up with a flurry the way that Calzaghe did against Manfredo, we’ll see an early stoppage. Manfredo was blown out by both Bika and Calzaghe in early stoppages. Calzaghe wasn’t considered a big puncher and yet he was able to destroy Manfredo by just throwing a lot of fast punches. Martinez will likely follow Calzaghe’s blue print and blow out Manfredo quickly. Hopefully they package a good undercard along with this fight because it might leave a lot of fans unhappy.



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