By William Mackay: The October 1st fight between WBC Diamond middleweight champion Sergio Martinez (47-2-2, 26 KO’s) and British challenger Darren Barker (23-0, 14 KO’s) is now less than a month a way. Martinez, 36, has taken this fight against the number #3 ranked World Boxing Council contender to knock off one of the top contenders while waiting for a shot to reclaim his WBC title against champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. next year in 2012.

The WBC has given Martinez the green light that he’ll be able to fight Chavez Jr. next year, but you really can’t count on Martinez getting a fight against Chavez Jr. then or possibly ever. It just doesn’t seem to be in the cards. But Martinez needs to beat Barker, look good and continue to knock off the top names in the division while he waits to see if Chavez Jr. will fight him, vacate or take on another top fighter like Miguel Cotto and likely get beat.

On paper, the Barker-Martinez fight is a mismatch. Barker is slow, doesn’t have much power and tends to get hit a lot in his fights. Think of a weak version of Kelly Pavlik, and that’s about what Barker amounts to being for this fight. Without then power to keep Martinez off of him, Barker is going to be opened up on with power shots from the earliest moments of their fight next month. The only hope Barker has is if he can move a lot on the outside and use his jab to keep Martinez at a distance until he possibly tires.

That isn’t very realistic because Barker is sluggish on his feet and his jab is a slow one, easy to pick off or duck under. to be honest, it doesn’t look good for Barker. He’s stepping up for the first time in his career from the 2nd tier fighters that he’s dined on exclusively in the past and is facing the best fighter in the division. It just looks bad for Barker and I can see this ending with him splayed out on the canvas, bleeding with eyes closed.