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It wasn’t pretty but WBC middleweight champ Sergio Martinez kept his title against England’s Martin Murray last evening in front of over 40,000 people Club Atletico Velez Sarsfield in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
The stadium was packed for the fighting return of Martinez for the first time since 2002 and the 38 year old switch-hitting southpaw had brought in the third English opponent he’s faced since 2011, former British, Commonwealth and current WBA Interim champ Murray.
Early on, Martinez looked like the Sergio of old, using shifty movement, hands-down defense and punches from odd angles to keep Murray looking stiff and unsure of how to proceed.
But Martinez could keep up the charade of youth for long and soon Murray found himself closer to the target and began to warm to the task at hand.
Murray’s hard-nosed approach, which included use of the head and forearm, was in sharp contrast to the elegant style of Martinez, but the older man was unable to hurt the challenger and keep him off.
Slowly, the control of Martinez began to slip as Murray started to throw combinations behind a high guard, landing right hands; Martinez still uses a reaction-based defense, no-hands defense but no longer has the quickness to avoid some of the lunging punches he attracts.
That point was amply illustrated in the eighth when Murray connected with a right and down went Martinez, just as he had during his previous two contests.
Martinez beat the count with little difficulty and went right back to swapping punches with the 30-year old Murray, who continued to advance behind a high guard and look for openings.
Just when things looked bad for the champion, Martinez stepped it up in the final two rounds, peppering Murray with shots from both hands while keeping the challenger on the defensive, winning the 11th and 12th and with it, the bout itself.
Martinez improves to 51-2-2 (28), on scores of 115-112 on all three cards, while Murray falls to 25-1-1 (11).
On the undercard, welterweights Luis Carlos Abregu, 35-1 (28), and Antonin Decarie, 27-2 (8), waged a competitive fight that saw the harder-punching Abregu winning a 97-92, 97-92, 97-90 unanimous decision after 10 rounds for the vacant WBC Silver title.
Dahania Santana, 32-6 (14), retained her IBF Female featherweight crown with a unanimous decision against IBF Female super feather queen Claudia Andrea Lopez, 22-7 (5), while former European super bantam champ Kiko Martinez, 28-4 (20), halted veteran Damian David Marchiano, 18-10-1 (7), in the second frame.
Heavyweight Magomed Abdulsalamov, 18-0 (18), kept a perfect record by dropping Sebastian Ignacio Ceballos, 33-8-2 (25), three times on the way to a first round TKO win.
