By Dan Ambrose: Former WBC middleweight champion Sergio Martinez has to settle for facing unbeaten Darren Barker (23-0, 14 KO’s) in his next fight on October 1st after the guys that Martinez wanted to fight showed no interest whatsoever in fighting him. Two fighters in particular that Martinez wanted – Miguel Cotto and Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. – failed to accept Martinez’s challenge. This hasn’t exactly pleased Martinez, who had these words to say about Cotto in an article by Dan Rafael at ESPN:

“One thing you can’t take away from Barker is he has the courage to face the best. He has the courage to face the best more than Cotto or Chavez. He has more courage than them. I am fighting an undefeated fighter. As I have always said, I am ready for anyone. Nobody else took a step forward to make this fight, but Barker did. I am very disappointed in Cotto. He has no balls to face me.”

Martinez is still hoping to get a shot at Chavez Jr. after he makes a defense of his WBC title in the fall. According to Rafael, Martinez’s adviser, Sampson Lewkowicz, has got a promise from the WBC that Chavez Jr. would get to face someone in the fall but then his next fight would have to be against Martinez. If Chavez failed to fight Martinez then the WBC would be forced to strip Chavez Jr. of his belt. However, Lou Dibella, the promoter for Martinez, doesn’t think that Chavez Jr. will be facing Martinez after he fights someone that his promotional company pick out for him. Dibella is skeptical that the WBC will honor the promise. However, even if they did, you would have to figure that Chavez’s promoter Bob Arum might have Chavez Jr. vacate the WBC belt rather take on Martinez and get blasted out in a mismatch.

As for Cotto, he’s not going to be facing Martinez anytime soon, even though Martinez was willing to fight him at 154. Martinez needs to forget about Cotto and Chavez, because those guys probably won’t get near Martinez until he starts to show serious signs of nearing the end of his career. Right now, he’s too good and those guys would both lose, and since Martinez isn’t a Top Rank fighter, Arum isn’t going to feed Cotto to Martinez like he did with Manny Pacquiao.