Sergio Martinez - the man or just the best of the bunch?

Morning guys,

Last night I watched a lot of Martinez fights as I was in the mood and to be fair, I feel he is going to be forgotten by history - wrongfully in my opinion.

His first fight with Paul Williams was a weird one, I had him winning, and I really rate Paul Williams - but the work Martinez put in that night for me won him the fight, his accuracy is frightening - a far cry from the boxer that lost to Margarito. As we know he then came back from that to tear apart Kelly Pavliks face and then got the W in his rematch with Paul Williams with a punch that would have dropped ANY boxer. The power and ferocity in that punch was unreal. His wins then against Dzinruk (sp?) Barker and Macklin shows that he belonged at this level, Barker fought the fight of his life, Macklin came with the kitchen sink.

Then there was JCC Jr. Martinez told everyone it would happen and it did, he outclassed the huge (almost LHW) Chavez Jr. He had a shock in the last round but came through - such is his spirit. It made me think, we all praise Froch for his last 7/8 fights (but he was in the super 6 which meant he was guaranteed some names) whereas Sergio has always stood at the forefront not just calling out everyone, but earning it too. I remember he famously said "The only title that I'm going to defend from now on is the one that I conquered by defeating Kelly Pavlik, which is the Ring magazine title." as he was being "held hostage" by the WBC and had to step aside for "my dignity, for my pride and for my manhood." (basically they gave the full title to Chavez Jr and awarded Martinez "Diamond")

I have an immense amount of respect for Martinez and truly believe that he has now - a solid claim to be P4P number 2 - possibly even challenging for top spot. I fear for Mayweather if these were to meet, because Martinez is all wrong for Mayweather. He's accurate and fast, but has power off the back foot. He's also very clever, he dealt with the very wily Williams quite well (twice in my opinion) and I can't see any Middleweight standing up to him. That said, how does he rank in history then? Middleweight is a notoriously difficult category to rank, however although others have achieved more and have more impressive records, on talent alone - do you feel he'd do well against some of the greats?

The two fights out there that I think would set the world alight would be vs Mayweather and vs Ward. I think he'd blitz through anyone else around his weight. There's talk of Golkovin and Geale, but Martinez would beat these two quite easily.

In my opinion he's the elite of the middle weights with ward and Mayweather. Top class guy too.

So, how do you rate Martinez?

He's had an admirable career, is a thoroughly worthy middleweight champion and has quite obviously been the best of the 160 lb men since Hopkins moved up.

There are a couple of caveats. One is that he has not been operating in a vintage period for middleweights. Not his fault, of course, and he did see off Williams, who was supposed to be the next big thing at one point, but he hasn't had the level of competition that would enable us to rank him very highly in an all-time sense. The same used to be said of Hopkins, and even Hagler, too, but men such as Macklin, Barker and Chavez Jr would probably not have troubled many of the decent 160 lb champs in history.

The other point to be made is that Martinez has achieved a lot at middleweight, despite being a fairly small 160 pounder. It requires a huge feat of imagination to see him standing toe to toe with some of the great names of the past and not getting pushed around. Not a creme de la creme champ, then, but easily better than some of the title holders in the 30s and 40s, for example.

Sergio is now at an age where Father Time can find you out very quickly. On all known form, he should have far too much for someone like Geale, even if he has slipped a bit. Golovkin strikes me as a nasty customer, though. Just the sort of opponent to speed up the ageing process. However his immediate future goes, Martinez has already left a considerable mark on his division.

He's hard to rank because he is fully deserving of his P4P rank and is the legitimate Middleweight king, but his lack of high end fights makes it hard to guage how he'd do vs the greats

Chavez, Barker, Macklin and Dzinzuruk are fighters that you would expect him to beat and the 2 Brits gave him problems. I rate Williams too although you could argue he wasn't really a middleweight. Pavlik was a great win and at the time pavlik was on the up and was a huge puncher

Martinez-Golovkin is a tricky one. Pre Chavez, Martinez didn't look great vs barker and Macklin and looked to be slowing down a tad. I personally have never rated Chavez and never thought that Martinez could lose to someone so limited. While he dominated for 11 rounds he was hurt badly in the 12 and got injured in the process. At his age that will hurt his body as its harder to recover when your older. Golovkin is an unknown quantity at the top but he has blasted away everyone put in front of him and dealt with a unorthodox southpaw (much like Martinez is) in Proska without any difficulty.

Golovkin hits harder than chavez and has a much better jab and closes the ring off better so its hard to call, can't see Golovkin winning by points though

I don't think the guy can prove much else. He has said more than once that he won't be moving up, and beating a light-mid who's moving up will not add to his legacy as everyone will just say his size was the difference.
I do however think a Mayweather fight would catapult him to super star status if he was to win, but even then the weight issue has to be remembered.

A fine champion, but wouldn't be able to hang with the elite full blown MWs of boxing history.

Nice article again, Jab Machine. You're in fine form right now!

Simply put, I'm certainly a fan of Martinez and an admirer of him on a personal level, too. Unquestionably deserves to be amongst the top half dozen fighters on the planet right now, pound for pound.

I think it's still a bit tricky to say if he could definitely mix it with the Middleweight elite of eras gone before because he has, for the past eighteen months, been (in boxing terms) an old man fighting young men, either in terms of age or how experienced they were at the highest level. Wins over the likes of Pavlik, Barker, Macklin and Chavez Jr, as of 2012, don't put him in the same stratosphere as a Mickey Walker or Gene Fullmer, never mind a Carlos Monzon, but what if Pavlik were to pick up a title at 168 lb before retiring? What if Macklin takes a portion of the Middleweight title in the future? What if Chavez surprises us all and becomes a legitimate champion anywhere between Middleweight and Light-Heavyweight in the next few years?

I get the feeling that at least one of Martinez's wins will end up having that Jones-Hopkins (I) feel about it, whereby it begins to look better and better with time.

He's a very classy operator. Pacquiao rightly gets credit for gradually converting himself in to a polished, two-fisted fighter over the course of a career which, at first, never looked likely to lead to pound for pound stardom - so to me, it's only fair that we give the same plaudits to Martinez. It's not very often that a fighter can, after a decade or so of middling, suddenly hoist themselves up to the highest class through hard work, a studious attitude and self belief, all at the wrong side of thirty.

I do see some weaknesses in him, however, which I think would prevent him ever being one of the 160 lb immortals, ala Greb, Hagler and Ketchel. Small at the weight, not always fast out of the blocks, perhaps a touch reliant on the other man making the fight etc. But in his defence, I think he's too good to be disgraced by any of them, and would offer them a very good workout at the least.

So not of the elite class, for me, but a damn fine fighter all the same, and more than worthy of being THE bonafide, consensus champion in one of the historically glamourous divisions.

In the rate 'em stakes he has the career credentials to pip Golovkin (not to saying he would win)

Should they have fought, IMO, Arthur would have KO'd him after being outboxed.

Also, would have loved to have seen him share a ring with a peak Winky.

Doubt abraham would have KO'ed Sergio, his style is an absolute nightmare for him.

Sergio wins an easy decision.

i rate martinez as almost a top 10 ATG middleweight, he is criminally under rated and think if he could secure a fight with mayweather (which he wins for me) he would finally get his dues.

that said, i think he would hugely benifit from an extra 2-3 big names (sort of calzaghe style) on his cv to push him right up there. on the flip side a loss might prevent him from cutting the top level grade, much like i think froch's next few fights will define how his career is remembered.

and martinez would not fair well moving up in weight, hes to small and the division above is too good, one of the best in years

Thanks for the responses guys, I'm glad Chris responded because he's what I would call "my perspective call" (you make me think a little further than I would normally is what I'm saying mate) so I certainly agree that the Grebs and the Monzons of the world have achieved more and perhaps were more fearsome, but I appreciate that you also see that Martinez would give them a damn fine showing.

Its amazing how far he's come, he seems to be getting better with ages, and I don't feel he struggled with Barker and Macklin, he just rarely needed to get out of 1st gear. Not diminishing their performances because they were career bests and against anyone else I feel they'd have won - the Sturms and Sylversters.

If Martinez manages to secure a Mayweather fight, then goes on to fight Ward at a catchweight or blast through Geale and Golkovin convincingly in the next year then we're looking at a top 20 ATG Middleweight certainly.

I also always thought Martinez was a horrible fight for floyd

Martinez isn't a big middleweight, but is a big lightmiddle with power to boot and speed. A slightly past it de la Hoya gave mayweather problems with his jab and height. Martinez is far more unorthodox and is quicker than DLH. Mayweather likes to control the range with his jab and dictate the pace, but he will if d it very hard with someone with a range like Martinez and good footwork. Plus his power is big enough to KO floyd when he does land

I don't buy that Martinez didn't struggle with barker and Macklin because he didn't need to get out of 2nd gear. Martinez is too professional for that and Martinez struggled because they weren't willing to engage so it made it hard for him

I think that Martinez is fantastic, that said matching up against the top men in gone by eras at MW I don't think he could quite keep up with them. For me, slightly too small and I think that he struggles a tad with big MW hitters, I don't think he has the best chin at MW due to being a small MW in honesty, not a bad one of course, just not good enough to last the pace with the best of them.

In terms of his resume, it's good but again it just doesn't match up with the very best of all times again, his resume just doesn't have enough quality on it. Barker, Macklin are not world title holders and I most certainly don't believe Barker ever will be, however as Chris says, if say Macklin picks up a title (Which to be fair he perhaps should have done after Sturm) his win is lifted to another level.

However a Mayweather win would be around about as great as Pryor's win over Arguello, a truly, truly great win, however not quite at Mayweather's best weight, which he would get marked down on, slightly.

just the best of the bunch for me. hes a very exciting fighter, been in some great fights and comes accross as very humble and likeable. but i do sometimes think people overrate him a tad because hes so likeable. he is the top man in the division and deserves recogniton for it. but lets be honest hes been made to work very very hard to be there, i dont think hes head and shoulders above, what others have already said is not the best chasing pack. made hard work of macklin and barker, nearly blew it against chavez jnr, a win and a loss against williams and a much tougher fight against pavlik than some care to remember. he always does things the difficult way and against better fighters from the past he would have regretted it. hopkins at middleweight would have picked him appart and capatilised on the frequent mistakes he can make in a fight, in a way that macklin and pavlik were unable to. also i do believe williams beat him first time around, but it was close and i dont see how it can be a robbery either way. he struggled with margarito and williams first time around, because hes too open and takes too many punches.

He does get tagged, that's why IMO, after humiliating Abraham for 10 rounds, he gets stopped late.

Abraham will be outboxed all night.

until Martinez gets tagged late!

If Froch can go 12 with Abraham without being properly tagged I think Martinez can.

Possibly but Abraham tends to get disheartened pretty quickly when he's getting outboxed, goes into his shell and doesn't do a lot.

Imperial Ghosty wrote:Possibly but Abraham tends to get disheartened pretty quickly when he's getting outboxed, goes into his shell and doesn't do a lot.

he was outboxed by dirrell but never lost heart, and i seem to remember round 12 being his best round against froch

Imperial Ghosty wrote:Possibly but Abraham tends to get disheartened pretty quickly when he's getting outboxed, goes into his shell and doesn't do a lot.

In part, I agree, but the disheartening has tended to happen at Super-middle weight because his power didn't carry up (or wasn't as effective against the big guys) and he was mostly out-boxed. However, at middle, he was destructive; the guy used to do one handed clap press-ups.... that's unreal explosive power.

If those fights at super hadn't happened, then at middle, he would still have the self-belief he could KO anyone at anytime; his faith wouldn't desert him.

If Chavez knocks Martinez down late then Abraham knocks him OUT late.

Abraham doesn't hit any harder than pavlik so I doubt Martinez will be knocked out late

Yes he went down to Chavez but got hit with huge shots and stayed up and even fired back himself. Abraham is tailor made for Martinez, his high guard will enable martinez to offload when he wants and dart out of danger

abraham does hit harder than pavlik. ask jermain taylor. martinez had the ability to outbox chavez for 12 rounds, but only managed to do it for 11. martinez makes mistakes, thats part of the reason his fights are so interesting

Well, I like Serge, hes freakin` fast & fights awkward, for that reason alone I rate he would beat mang ATG at 160, and give all but the very best a helluva fight. JCC jr. isnt the greatest, but at his size, and with that Chavez Chin plus 180lbs of base, I doubt many greats would drop him. Macklin I feel, will be the fight that really defines Martinez, a tricky customer who really threw the kitchen sink & then the bath tub at Martinez, & Serge still saw him off. As for Williams, ANY 160lbs in any point in history wöuld have been dropped by that Anvil

No doubt Martinez would run rings round Abraham, but Abraham wasn't as gun shy at middle. Looking at this highlight video he did have the power to hurt the big guys like Froch and Ward et al too. IMO Martinez gets dropped by a bomb!!!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KRRSNDsA_8

I like Martinez but you're severely over rating him based on fighting Macklin and Williams, he's good no doubt but don't see him troubling the truly great middleweights. Hopkins for instance would have a field day against a fighter who is flawed.

I think hes good, but not great for me. It hasnt really been the best of middleweight divisions he has presided over. I think his style relies a bit too heavily on using upper body movement as defence which can be dangerous and sometimes leave him off balance.

I would not say his style is all wrong for Mayweather, although obviously size is a big advantage. But theoretically I would see it as a battle of slicker, cagier fighters and its hard to see Mayweather being beaten at his own kind of game unless the size bridge is too great. Mayweather has the tighter defence by far, more well rounded, faster and is the more accurate puncher. So if it came down to a kind of chess match I would expect him to win it from the outside.

Lance wrote:abraham does hit harder than pavlik. ask jermain taylor. martinez had the ability to outbox chavez for 12 rounds, but only managed to do it for 11. martinez makes mistakes, thats part of the reason his fights are so interesting

Where do you get that from? Pavlik KO'ed Taylor in the 7th round in the first fight, where as Abraham took until the 12th to KO Taylor who had already been stopped by Froch.