By Scott Gilfoid: Peter Fury, the trainer for IBO/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Tyson Fury, says he was impressed with what he saw of American heavyweight Charles Martin (23-0-1, 21 KOs) last Saturday night in him beating Vyacheslav Glazkov (21-1-1, 13 KOs) to win the vacant IBF heavyweight title in their fight in New York.
The 6’5” Martin twice put Glazkov on the canvas in the 3rd round. They were called slips, but the slips were initiated by Martin throwing powerful right hand shots at Glazkov, which caused him to hit the canvas while trying to get out of the way of them.
Peter Fury says he sees Martin as being the equal to WBC heavyweight champion Deontay “Bronze Bomber” Wilder (36-0, 35 KOs) in terms of talent. This is a huge compliment on Peter’s part, because Deontay possesses one-punch power and is currently on the express train to the top in quickly becoming the heavyweight division’s biggest star.
Deontay successfully defended his title last Saturday night in knocking out challenger Artur Szpilka (20-2, 15 KOs) in the 9th round in their fight on Showtime Championship Boxing from the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York. The Martin-Glazkov fight was the co-feature bout on the card.
“Charles Martin looks very good. From what I’ve seen of him, he’s useful. I had him beating Glazkov before the injury and saw the fight going only one way, to be honest,” Peter said to skysports.com.”I think Martin is equally as good as Wilder, as far as I can see. He looks impressive and I think he’s up there. He has to be taken seriously and he’s the IBF champion now. I liked his punches and the way he was relaxed,” Peter said.
I’m not sure if I agree with Peter’s opinion of Martin being as good as Wilder, but I do think Martin is better than Tyson Fury. I hate to say it, but the southpaw Martin has better pop in his punches than Fury, which isn’t saying much because Fury can’t punch, as many boxing fans know.
Martin has better offensive skills than Fury, and is a busier fighter on offense. If you watch how Fury fought against Wladimir Klitschko last November, you saw that all Fury was doing was throwing an occasional slap and rabbit punch to the back of Wladimir’s head. There was no semblance of any kind of offensive skills from Fury.
If that had been the 29-year-old Martin in the ring on that night, Wladimir would have been under constant pressure from incoming shots from Martin. What makes Martin so good is he’s big, calm, and throws nonstop punches. Granted, Martin’s punching power isn’t in the same league as Wilder or guys like Dillian Whyte or David Haye, but he punches plenty hard enough to get the job done, as we saw last Saturday with his impressive 3rd round stoppage win over Glazkov.
You don’t have a record of 23-0, with 21 knockouts if you don’t have punching power. Martin is a good enough puncher to do the job, and his high work rate makes him especially dangerous. What makes Martin even better is he’s a southpaw. Having to deal with all those left hands and right hooks has to be a real nightmare for Martin’s opponents.
“Martin was doing everything properly. I haven’t seen much but from what I have seen, he looks impressive,” Peter said.
I think Charles Martin would beat Tyson Fury if/when that fight happened. Martin has too much size, too much power, and throws too many punches for a fighter like Fury to deal with. If Fury gets past Wladimir in their rematch in early 2016, I wouldn’t mind seeing Fury and Martin fight each other. The winner of the contest could then face Deontay in a final unification match with all the heavyweight titles up for grabs. I think that would be the best path for Fury to take right now. If Fury beats Wladimir and then faces Deontay in his next fight, then I see the show stopping for Fury, because Deontay will likely knock him out. It’s better that Fury face Martin first, and then the winner of that fight looks to fight the arguably top dog in the division in Deontay to settle who is the best.
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