Josh Warrington vs. Kiko Martinez – Results

By Boxing News - 05/13/2017 - Comments

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By Scott Gilfoid: Undefeated featherweight contender Josh Warrington (25-0, 5 KOs) won a controversial 12 round majority decision win on Saturday night over former world super bantamweight champion Kiko Martinez (36-8-1, 26 KOs) at the First Direct Arena, Leeds, England. The 31-year-old Martinez appeared to do more than enough to get the victory tonight.

The official judges’ scores were 116-112, 116-112, and 114-114. Boxing News 24 had Martinez winning 8 rounds to 4. Martinez looked furious after the fight, as he clearly that he had done enough to win the fight. Martinez should have known that he needed a knockout tonight to make sure he won the fight.

Martinez should have emptied his gas tank in the early rounds to shoot for a knockout, because there was no way he was going to win a decision. It was one of those situations where the better man DIDN’T win tonight. At the end of the day, Warrington will have his hands full when he eventually fights for a world title against Gary Russell Jr.

It was impossible to give the victory to the 26-year-old Warrington because he wasn’t punching with any power. In contrast, Kiko Martinez was connecting with some tremendous shots in each round. Martinez reminded me of Saul Canelo Alvarez. If you look at a lot of Canelo’s fights, he’s often outworked by his opponents. The reason why the judges give Canelo the wins is because of his harder landing shots. It was the same thing tonight with the Warrington vs. Martinez. Warrington landed more punches, but it was Martinez’s shots that had all the power. Warrington, 26, couldn’t crack eggs with his shots.

The victory for Warrington keeps him on course to get an eventual world title shot against WBC featherweight champion Gary Russell Jr. in the near future. Warrington is going to have MAJOR problems when he faces Russell Jr., because he can’t punch at all. The power shots that Warrington was throwing tonight would have Russell Jr. laughing at him while he peppered him with counter shots aplenty.

I can’t see Warrington lasting long against a talent like Russell Jr. Warrington’s chances of besting Russell Jr. is if the fight went the distance and if he had judging like we saw tonight. I thought the scoring was awful to the extreme.

Other boxing action on the card, undefeated super bantamweight Thomas Patrick Ward (21-0, 2 KOs) defeated James “Jazza” Dickens (22-3, 7 KOs) by a 9th round technical decision. The fight went to the scorecards after Ward suffered a cut from a head-butt. The final judges’ scores were 87-85, 87-85 and 88-84. Dickens was recently beaten by Guillermo Rigondeaux. With the victory, Ward capture the British 122lb tile.

Nicola Adams (2-0, 1 KOs) destroyed an overmatched Maryan Salazar (5-2, 0 KOs) by a 3rd round TKO.