By Dan Ambrose: Sergio Martinez (50-2-2, 28 KO’s) is now the WBC middleweight champion after defeating WBC 160 pound title holder Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. (46-1-1, 32 KO’s) by a 12 round unanimous decision to give the young son of boxing great Julio Cesar Chavez Sr. his first defeat of his career on Saturday night at the Thomas & Mack Center, in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Chavez Jr. almost pulled out some of his father’s magic by knocking Martinez down in the 12th and battering him after he got back to his feet. Unfortunately, Chavez Jr. ran out of time and wasn’t able to finish the job. Then judges scored the fight 117-110, 118-109 and 118-109.

This was easily the worst fight of Chavez Jr’s career because he was never really able to get his shots off with any regularity. Chavez Jr. fought reasonably well in the first two rounds, but things got completely out of hand from the 3rd round until the 11th, as Martinez was able to hit and move to keep Chavez Jr. from getting set on his punches. With Martinez not staying in one place, it made it impossible for Chavez Jr. to get his shots off. He literally become paralyzed because he didn’t know how to fight against a moving target and looked helpless.

Chavez Jr’s trainer Freddie Roach didn’t do well in preparing Chavez Jr. for this encounter because he looked so bad tonight that it made me wonder who Roach had been using for Chavez Jr’s sparring partners. It must have been someone that couldn’t move because Chavez Jr. fought like this first time he’d ever encountered a fighter with some mobility.

Roach had had a bad run lately with ALL of his top fighters Manny Pacquiao, Amir Khan and now Chavez Jr. having lost their last fights. Roach looked broken hearted when the judges scores were rattled tonight.

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In one of the rare competitive fights on this card filled with mismatches, Roman Martinez (26-1-1, 16 KO’s) defeated Miguel Beltran Jr. (27-2, 17 KO’s) by a 12 round unanimous decision to capture the vacant World Boxing Organization (WBO) super featherweight crown. The final judges’ scores were 116-111, 114-114 and 114-113. I’m still not sure why this fight ended up as the co-main event because neither guy were recognizable to casual boxing fans in the U.S and it seemed more like a fight that should have been tucked away in one of the first fights on the card.

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Middleweight contender Matthew Macklin (29-4, 20 KO’) not surprisingly destroyed former WBC World junior middleweight champion Joachim Alcine (33-3-1, 19 KO’s) by a 1st round TKO. Macklin, who probably was taking notes from Alfredo Angulo’s 1st round knockout win over Alcine from 2010, did exactly what Angulo did by blitzing Alcine in the 1st round before he could even get warmed up. Macklin put Alcine down twice before the fight was finally halted at 2:26 of the round. I smelled something funny as soon as I saw this match on this card, because I knew it was going to be a terrible mismatch because of how old Alcine is and how bad he looked against Angulo.

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In a rather disappointing performance, WBA World super bantamweight champion Guillermo Rigondeaux (11-0, 8 KO’s) defeated Top Rank fringe contender/prospect Robert Marroquin (22-2, 15 KO’s) by a 12 round unanimous decision by the scores 118-108, 118-108, and 118-108. Rigondeaux knocked the 22-year-old Marroquin down twice in the fight, once in the 5th and another time in the 12th. However, Marroquin staggered Rigondeaux on a couple of occasions with hard left hooks to the head and that was a real surprise because that wasn’t supposed to happen to Rigondeaux. However, in fairness to Rigondeaux, Marroquin looked huge in the ring, and appeared to have a significant weight advantage over Rigondeaux. In addition to that, Rigondeaux seemed to take the victory over Marroquin for granted and got sloppy against him due to the long stretches that would go by where Rigondeaux was easily dominating Marroquin.

Bob Arum is probably pleased with Marroquin’s performance, and might even believe that he can win a title some day. I think Arum should cut his losses because I don’t see much of a future for Marroquin. He doesn’t throw jabs, doesn’t throw a lot of punches and seems to only have a left hook and nothing else going for him. He’s not going to win many fights against quality opposition righting the way he did tonight.

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In other action on the card:

Wale Omotoso UD 8 Daniel Sostre
Willie Nelson UD 10 John Jackson
Michael Medina UD 8 James Winchester
Mike Lee UD 4 Paul Harness