question about martinez

[killersheep]

Agreed...I am just not sold on him as elite yet...I think he is a world class fighter who has the ability to upset anyone near his division but I won't say he is P4P or is he the best fighter even at 154

Who do you have ahead of him at 154? Light middle is really weak right now, there's some upcoming young guns, but the old guard has been really inactive.

Cotto I put ahead of him....I mentioned somewhere on the forum that IMO Cotto has the perfect style to KO Martinez...Sergio moves a lot and depends on it to keep his opp off....Cotto knows how to cut the ring off...He has big body shots.....He will slow Martinez down....Martinez not a guy who can fight off ropes or is he comfortable in close.....Cotto once slowing him down would either force him to stand and fight or shell up on the ropes....Similar to the Malignaggi bout where he chases and beats him up but I don't think Martinez is a durable as Paulie was back then..

We already spoke of Foreman who IMO beats him just as fast and younger...Martinez I noticed in the Pavlik fight can not keep the gas on all 12 rds....He also does not have a really high output in punches..

Depending on what Version of Spinks shows up is another close one....He has a rematch with Williams due...Though they might just do that at MW.....If Williams rematch W Quintana showed us anything that is Williams comes more prepared for rematches....

Those are 4 good fights for him...I favor him only over Spinks but still good fight......People rather see him fight Cotto, Foreman, Williams as far as earning potential then just abt any MW..

Plus a few WW guys will be coming up in the next year....

Like I stated he is 35 and time for paychecks are running down....

Fair enough, I think this kind of gets to heart of how we look at him.
I think Cotto is not what he used to be and whether or not his power carries up to 154 is completely unproven, not to mention his reach deficit increases considerably. Spinks is an old man himself, I don't think he really can get a crowd behind him even in his last fight against Latimore his home crowd was decidedly behind Latimore. The two fights at 154 that interest me the most are a Williams rematch and Foreman.