By Aragon Garcia: After just a small handful of televised fights in the United States, Julio Cesar Martinez has quickly built up a large fan base of fans who are following the 25-year-old WBC 112 pound champion. Martinez (16-12, 12 KOs) recently won his title in beating Cristofer Rosales by a ninth-round knockout last December in a war in Phoenix, Arizona.
Compared to a lot of the big-name fighters, Martinez provides more entertainment value than most of them. Even fighters like Canelo Alvarez, Gennadiy Golovkin, and Errol Spence Jr. aren’t as exciting as Martinez in this writer’s view.
There’s a relentless quality to Martinez’s game that is old school, reminding one of a prime Julio Cesar Chavez, Salvador Sanchez, and Carlos Zarate. Trained by Eddy Reynoso, Julio Cesar Martinez is a fantastic fighter who has star written all over him.
What Martinez needs is fights against the other belt holders at 112 and 115. His promoters at Matchroom Boxing haven’t said yet who they want to put Martine in with for his next fight, but one of these fighters would be ideal:
- Artem Dalakian
- McWilliams Arroyo
- Moruti Mthalane
- Kosei Tanaka
- Srisaket Sor Rungvisai
- Carlos Cuadras
- Roman Gonzalez
- Juan Francisco Estrada
Martinez is a nonstop thrower like the late Aaron Pryor. What makes Martinez different is the way he changes stances in the middle of his attacks. Normally fighters will change their stance on the outside and then look to mix it up.
Martinez does while he’s on the attack, and it makes it difficult for his opponents to deal with the sudden change with the angles of the shots.
Assigned to the undercard of the Daniel Jacobs vs. Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. event at the Talking Stick Resort Arena, Martinez stole the show with his win over former WBC flyweight champion Rosales (29-5, 20 KOs).
Martinez’s attacking fighting style and combination punching was incredible to watch. He would go on the attack and hammer Rosales with double and triple hooks to the head and body.
Martinez did that all night until the referee Raul Caiz Jr had to step in and stop it in the 9th to save the Nicaraguan. The uppercuts that Martinez was hitting Rosales with were devastating shots.
In Martinez’s last fight, he once again took the limelight away from the main event in his match against Jay Harris on February 29 on the Mikey Garcia vs. Jessie Vargas card in Frisco, Texas. Granted, the headliner was almost as bad as the Jacobs vs. Chavez Jr. fight in terms of it being a lesser match.
Martinez’s taller opponent previously unbeaten Harris (17-1, 9 KOs) proved to be a highly talented fighter, who fought his heart out. However, Martinez had too much firepower in wearing Harris down in winning a 12 round unanimous decision by the scores 116-111, 115-112, and 118-109.
Martinez sealed the deal with a knockdown in the 10th round. He nailed Harris with a hard left to the body that put him on the canvas in a delayed fashion. Harris struggled from that point in the fight with the pressure from Martinez.
