By Chris Williams: Former heavyweight champion Charles Martin will be continuing his slow climb back to the top in 2018. His adviser Mike Boroa believes the 31-year-old southpaw Martin will recapture a heavyweight title. If that happens, it would be a huge surprise to many fans. Martin is largely seen as one-hit wonder.
Boroa isn’t giving a timeline or a name for who Martin will beat to recapture his heavyweight title, so we’re left to assume that he’s talking about IBF/WBA heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua.
Martin lost his IBF heavyweight title almost 2 years ago in a 2nd round knockout defeat at the hands of Joshua on April 9, 2016. Martin was dropped twice in the 2nd round from big shots to the head by Joshua. It looked like Martin didn’t want to be there. He had time to rub his nose while he was down, and it just looked like he wanted no part of fighting on the night. Martin was out of the ring 1 year after his loss to Joshua.
Since his defeat at the hands of Joshua, Martin has won his last 2 fights in beating journeymen Byron Polley (30-20-1) and Michael Marrone (21-7).
“Charles Martin will regain the heavyweight championship,” said Boroa to Badlefthook.com. “His game has changed so much with the addition of trainer Sugar Hill. It’s similar to the improvements Lennox Lewis made when he hired Emanuel Steward, and a very similar story.”
Martin is ranked #7 WBC and #10 IBF at heavyweight. If Martin can keep winning, he should ultimately get ranked at No.1 and become a mandatory challenger to WBC champion Deontay Wilder or IBF champ Anthony Joshua. If nothing else, Martin can get another payday in fighting for a title. Even if he gets knocked out once again, he’ll make a lot of money like he did in his loss to Joshua in 2016.
In the nearly 2 years since Martin’s loss to Joshua, he doesn’t have much to show for himself. Martin needs to get busy with his career, and start fighting better opposition. Just fighting 2nd and 3rd tier fighters like the ones Martin has been padding his record with lately aren’t going to get him a title shot anytime soon.
Martin’s main problem is he’s never looked particularly talented. Even during his best performances of his career in beating Vyacheslav Glazkov and Tom Dallas, he didn’t look that good. Those are the best fighters Martin has faced during his 6-year pro career. Glazkov hasn’t fought since his loss to Martin 2 years ago, and it looks like his career is done. Glazkov lost the fight due to a right knee injury.
”I can’t wait for Charles to win the title for a second time, and prove all the doubters wrong!” said Boroa.
It sounds like a pipe dream on Boroa’s part. Martin’s a decent fringe level heavyweight, but I can’t see him doing much against any of the good heavyweights in the division. The biggest thing that is going to hold Martin back, besides his soft match-making, is he’s probably going to need to become a mandatory challenger for him to get a title shot. Joshua won’t ever bother fighting Martin in a voluntary defense because he already beat him once. Joshua vs. Martin 2 won’t sell on pay-per-view in the UK. With the horrible fighters that Martin is fighting at this point in his career.
It could take Martin many years for him to earn a No.1 mandatory spot. If one of the sanctioning bodies orders Martin to fight a halfway decent heavyweight in a title eliminator, then he’ll probably lose. Martin can’t be counted on to defeat someone like Luis Ortiz, Dillian Whyte, Dominic Breazeale, Jarrell Miller, Kubrat Pulev, Andy Ruiz, Alexander Povetkin, Lucas Browne or Carlos Takam. I think Martin would lose to all those guys.