Sergio Martinez: My knee is shattered, I am 40, and my hair is falling out

By Boxing News - 05/11/2015 - Comments

martinez6783332(Photo credit: Naoki Fakuda) By Dan Ambrose: Former WBC middleweight champion Sergio Martinez (51-3-2, 28 KOs) says his surgically repaired right knee is in bad shape, and that he’ll be meeting with his doctor in the next three weeks to make a decision about his career.

Martinez, 40, says he’s already made up his mind about his career, but he wants to have a meeting with his doctor first before he makes an announcement.

Martinez hasn’t fought since his 10th round stoppage win against Miguel Cotto last year in June. That was the fight where Martinez’s surgically repaired right knee wobbled each time he was hit hard by Cotto. Even when he wasn’t getting hit, Martinez moved around like someone whose knee wasn’t in good shape. He didn’t look like he belonged in the ring with a knee that unstable.

Interestingly enough, Cotto’s trainer Freddie Roach said that Martinez was still in his prime when they fought. Roach felt that the reason why Cotto beat Martinez so easily was because of his great game plan that he’d engineered for the fight rather than Martinez fighting on a bad knee. Roach was convinced – and is still convinced – that he’s turned Cotto’s career around by training rather than a case of Cotto being matched against an old guy with a bad knee and an old ESPN2 fighter in Delvin Rodriguez.

“I am a boxer, my knee is shattered. I am 40 years old, I’m getting wrinkles and my hair is falling out,” Martinez said via Argentina’s La Nacion daily. “I’ve already made up my mind, but in a few weeks I will have a final meeting with doctors and make my announcement then.”

Martinez went on to say that he can’t even play soccer anymore due to his bad knee, which he had two knee surgeries on before his fight against Cotto. Martinez hasn’t had any surgeries since then, and it’s unknown if any additional surgeries will fix the problem. Even if Martinez does have another surgery on his bad knee, it’s going to take many months for him rehab the knee and he’d likely be 41 by the time he gets back inside the ring. I don’t think that’s feasible.

Three years ago, Martinez injured his right knee in his fight against a hulking Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. when Martinez made the mistake of electing to fight the much heavier Chavez Jr. in a toe-to-toe manner in the 12th round. Chavez Jr. caught Martinez with a big right hand to the head that staggered him and put him down on the canvas. In the process of falling down, Martinez suffered the knee injury.

To his credit, Martinez was able to get up from the knockdown and finish the fight on his feet, but the damage had been done. He needed surgery a short time after the fight and the surgery didn’t fix the problem. In training for his next fight against Martin Murray, Martinez reinjured his knee. Instead of canceling the fight, Martinez went out and fought with the bad knee. He won the fight by a 12 round decision, but he didn’t look good. He then had another knee surgery to fix the problem, and that kept him out of the ring for 14 months until his fight against Cotto. The knee surgery obviously didn’t fix the problem because he was unable to move around like he’d done before his knee injury in 2012.



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