Quote Originally Posted by Chino View Post
It's hilarious that there are posters on this board that call Pac, Pacroid, when he has never been caught, and Junior has actually been caught, but it seems to fly under the radar.
Interesting thing is that both Pac and Jr. are trained by the same team and both make a deal about random blood tests. I am surprised Khan is the only one from that team who is willing to take all random blood tests just like past Floyd opponents have.

I don't really see the point of denigrating Junior if he is clean and stepping up his game. He's taking on legitimate challengers now. If his progress recedes, let's reconsider him, but for now, he's doing what he should be doing. He was ducking Martinez for a while, but it appears the tide may be changing, with this Lee fight, and the winner being mandatory for Martinez.
Like I said, Jr. beating Martinez would be a bit humiliating. I mean, Jr is technically an amateur facing guys with double/triple his experience if you think about it. Martinez beating Jr. wouldn't really do much to his record, would it?
I don't necessarily believe so. Junior has advantages in age, size, and trainer. He's 29, compared with Martinez's 37. He's also a huge middleweight whereas Martinez is a small middleweight. While Junior had a limited amateur background, compared to guys like Abril, who had over 200 amateur fights, or Rigondeaux, who had over 300, Martinez only had 40 amateur fights, and started boxing at age 20. Martinez had his first professional fight at age 22. Junior also had the benefits of having the creme de la creme of teams surrounding him from day one. Martinez didn't get a quality trainer until he moved to Spain, and even then, I'm not sure you can compare Gabriel Sarmiento with Freddie Roach.

I agree that it wouldn't be a huge blow to Junior's record if he lost to Martinez. I doubt he'd lose a lot of fans because of it.

Having said all that, beating Junior would not be as big of a legacy accomplishment in my mind, as beating Sturm, for example, or the winner of Geale/Pirog. However, think about the fighters that are the stars of boxing. Martinez is not in the group; Junior is in that group. He packs stadiums. His fights on HBO are among the highest-viewed fights on HBO. If Martinez beats Junior, he'll gain more traction with the Mexican fight fan. Moreover, the pay for the Junior fight probably would be more than it would be for Sturm or Geale/Pirog, at least the same, and for less risk.

Martinez first called out Cotto, another one of the stars of boxing. Cotto dismised the fight with the age-old cliche, about not making business sense. Cotto wanted either Junior or Mayweather. The same opponents Martinez wants and for the same reason.