Sergio Martinez Retires

[SugarBoxing]

I think if he started boxing maybe 5 years earlier, not at 20?, he could have developed into a phenomenal fighter. He had charisma and skills to be a great champion.

[Gandalf]

Good decision. He is old and his legs are gone. Martinez has had a very good career and that final fight means very little.

[Master]

I remember him getting floored by Richard Williams , then getting up to win.
I don't think anyone thought he would go on to have such a great career.
Enjoy your retirement champ!

I did not remember Williams knocking Sergio down but could see he was a class act.

[X]

A class act, and the genuine best middleweight in the world for a while. Interesting awkward style, big punch and fun to watch.

Success came late for him, so he knew what it was like to struggle and always appreciated it

He was HUGE in Argentina, voted Argentinian sports personality of the year many times (and Leo Messi is Argentinian)

Thanks for the memories and have a happy retirement champ

[Beanz]

A class act, and the genuine best middleweight in the world for a while. Interesting awkward style, big punch and fun to watch.

Success came late for him, so he knew what it was like to struggle and always appreciated it

He was HUGE in Argentina, voted Argentinian sports personality of the year many times (and Leo Messi is Argentinian)

Thanks for the memories and have a happy retirement champ

Couldn't sum it up any better. Classy guy, and his willingness to make a stand against domestic violence was an important cherry on top. Well done champ, you climbed that mountain, and nobody can take that away, however shot your knees get.

[Fenster]

He took the first fight with The Secret on a weeks notice and had a full time job at the time. They then brought him back over to bash Williams up again.

Like Winky he made his name duffing up Brits before going to the States.

[SlimTrae]

sergio martinez is a good guy and has had a good career

most over rated fighter of recent times tho

I don't see why ?

he was rated lb4lb number 2 or 3 after winning 2 out of 4 fights, then went on to beat a number of fringe contendors

dont get me wrong hes a great fighter and has looked good in the latter years

but hes was never in the top 2 or 3 fighters in the world

I call it the(HBO) factor. They always hype their fighters on the mythical title P4P, whereas Showtime usually ranks fights by their weight class.

Not sure why he couldn't out work margarito, not like he got busted up.
Good win against Pavlik, he busted Kelly up pretty good.

I will wait two years before saying he has retired. Lennox and Calzaghe are the exception to the rule.

Last note: yeah he is a humble guy, but he don't really need to be a class act for me to give him props. I love looking back on a fighter's career when they've done wild shit like Riddick Bowe punching Larry Donald at the podium. Morales and Barerra slugging at the podium, Ali and Frazier wrestling in front of Cossell, Larry Holmes jumping off someone's car like superman....and kicking Trevor Berbick.

None of those guys beat their women, kept getting arrested...They werent criminals which is what I ask of a fighter. Be a class act in the ring...but it's okay to be an extrovert. It's ok to be a badass if it's you and not an act.
Anyhow, good fighter, really flashy, didn't cherry pick, had nice power, but average resume.

[Dark Lord Al]

I remember him getting floored by Richard Williams , then getting up to win.
I don't think anyone thought he would go on to have such a great career.
Enjoy your retirement champ!

I did not remember Williams knocking Sergio down but could see he was a class act.

First fight - 2.09 of the third round , right hand.

I Thank you!

[Master]

I remember him getting floored by Richard Williams , then getting up to win.
I don't think anyone thought he would go on to have such a great career.
Enjoy your retirement champ!

I did not remember Williams knocking Sergio down but could see he was a class act.

First fight - 2.09 of the third round , right hand.

I Thank you!

I must have only watched the 2nd fight. As Fenster said he beat up another one of our British fighters after and then took over the world. So in a way we taught him everything.

[Beanz]

Great article here from the Guardian

Celebrating Sergio Martínez, one of the great middleweight boxers of our time | Sport | The Guardian




"As Martin Murray sat beside his compatriot Darren Barker in the Sky Sports studio, a smile grew across his face. A sturdy, thick-necked middleweight with a history of violent crime, Murray listened incredulously as Birmingham-born Matthew Macklin boasted proudly of his exploits, both domestically and abroad. Calling in from his gym on the south coast of Andalusia, Macklin reminded his domestic rivals that he had headlined on HBO, sold out Madison Square Garden and given the best boxers in the division a run for his money. “I showed I’m a fairly complete fighter,” he insisted. “I pushed him very close.”
“At the end of the day you got beat,” Murray replied coldly. “As soon as Martínez stepped it up you was out of your depth.”
As is usually the case in boxing, the reality was somewhere in between. Murray’s assertion may have contained an element of truth, but that is no real slight on his British rival. You could have copied and pasted the name of any top middleweight between 2010 and 2013 and the statement would have rung equally true.
Barker, like Macklin, had been knocked out by Sergio Martínez, the lineal middleweight champion who reigned with distinction from April 2010 to June 2014. At the time of filming Murray was yet to fight him, but a few weeks later he would join his countrymen in defeat, united as members of an utterly thankless club.

Murray travelled to Buenos Aires in April 2013 and did sufficiently well as to give Martínez a tough night’s work, dropping him in the eighth round and exposing the frailties that had taken root in his 38-year-old bones. Though he was victorious, and extended his run at the top of the sport into a fourth successive year, fighting men a decade younger appeared to have finally caught up with the Argentinian star; something that would be confirmed violently in June 2014, when the diminutive Miguel Cotto dropped him three times in the first round and took his belt barely 30 minutes later.
Eleven months on and with no return in sight, Martínez told the Argentinian newspaper La Nacion that his knee had been “shattered”: “I am a boxer, my knee is shattered. I am 40 years old, I’m getting wrinkles and my hair is falling out. I cannot play a game of soccer with my mates, like when I was a kid, let alone return to fight at the top level. I’ve already made up my mind, but in a few weeks I will have a final meeting with doctors and make my announcement then.”
If the end was inglorious, unbecoming of a champion who was near impossibly great in his prime, it was taken with all his customary grace. This was a man, after all, with a heightened sense of perspective, unthinkable amid the bravado and flash of the sport’s biggest names. Rejected by his own country, Martínez had been fed to the wolves in Las Vegas in only his 18th fight, before he was forced to relocate to Spain and accept fringe title bouts on barely a week’s notice. Unwilling to meekly accept his lot, however, he defied the powers that be by embarking on a nine-year undefeated steak following his first professional loss in 2000, clawing his way back into contention, both for world titles and prime American TV dates.


His redemption would be sealed in 2010 with a dominant win over great white hope Kelly Pavlik, dicing the skin above both his opponent’s eyes and claiming the lineal middleweight championship of the world. Such was the sensational nature of the performance that Pavlik chose to waive the rematch clause in the contract, remaining inactive for over a year before returning against a significantly lower level of opposition. He had been the next big thing in boxing at one time, yet would later retire, aged just 30, having never breathed another word about again wanting to face the man who took his crown.
But Martínez was just getting started, and followed up his schooling of Pavlik with the Knockout of the Year against the man widely considered the most avoided fighter in the sport. Paul Williams, known as The Punisher, averaged close to 100 punches thrown per round, and was considered tricky enough that neither Floyd Mayweather nor the aforementioned Cotto showed any inclination to share a ring with him. Given Williams’s relentless style and extraordinary conditioning, as well as the fact that their earlier meeting had gone to a disputed decision, Martínez was expected to have his work cut out. Yet he needed less than four minutes to put his opponent to sleep, landing an overhand left that reverberated around Boardwalk Hall like a gunshot, removing Williams from consciousness while still on his feet, before allowing his body to crumple cinematically to the canvas.

A string of sensational performances came after, during which time Martínez saw his stock rise to the point where he was widely considered, behind Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao, the best pound for pound fighter in the sport. Having laid waste to the British scene, he reclaimed the WBC middleweight belt that had been inexplicably stripped from him and placed around the waist of the president’s godson, Julio Cesar Chavez, Jr. He even made it to pay-per-view for two of his three final fights, fulfilling a gnawing personal ambition and cementing his status as a star, both in the boxing world and at home in his native Argentina.
Given his athletic style and advanced age, it was no great surprise that the end would prove to be sudden. A former footballer and passionate cyclist, he had developed a strength in his legs rarely seen in boxing, granting him the ability to dart in and out of range with his hands down, safe in the knowledge that his feet were sufficiently swift as to get him out of trouble. Once the legs went, he was left with little else. His extraordinarily late start in the sport, which he took up only at age 20, had denied him the fundamentals developed by others who begin as children or in their teens.
Last summer, following the conclusion of the 9th round against Cotto, as he hobbled back to his corner having been knocked down for the fourth time, Martínez’s body had given up. Pablo Sarmiento, his trainer, recognised this, and took the fighter’s head in his hands. “Your knees are not working, Sergio,” he cried. “It’s my responsibility.” Martínez frowned and asked for water, but Sarmiento, who had been with him since his days as a part-time dishwasher in La Mancha, was insistent. “You’ll always be my champion,” he bellowed repeatedly above the raucous crowd.
Though it felt to observers like the most wretched of ends, there was still time for Martínez’s class to shine through when, draped in the flag of his beloved Argentina, he looked to the crowd, to his people, and commended the man who had taken his place.
“If nothing else, I can only say congratulations. You’ve got to know how to win, and know how to lose.”
Though politics dictates that he may never make it to Canastota and the Hall of Fame, it was fitting that his final words from the summit of the sport were a statement to which its occupants would wholeheartedly subscribe. In a world as transparently self-serving as boxing, where nothing is on the record and every utterance must be taken with a pinch of salt, Martínez spoke not merely as a great champion, but as a great man."

[SlimTrae]

Sergio surely was a flashy fighter with pop to his Punch. Not sure I'd call him a great, even his era.

The writer uses quite a few adjectives to describe mediocrity. Extraordinary late start.

A string of sensational performances without naming these fights.
Murray, Barker, Pavlik and Williams. Not the best resume for 56 fights over 17 years.

Bunema is a decent journeyman that most fought to get to the top, same for Cintron-really flakey draw and weird stoppage, just to continue on.

Not sure if he is hall of fame worthy, but I wouldn't complain if he made it.

[Beanz]

Sergio surely was a flashy fighter with pop to his Punch. Not sure I'd call him a great, even his era.

The writer uses quite a few adjectives to describe mediocrity. Extraordinary late start.

A string of sensational performances without naming these fights.
Murray, Barker, Pavlik and Williams. Not the best resume for 56 fights over 17 years.

Bunema is a decent journeyman that most fought to get to the top, same for Cintron-really flakey draw and weird stoppage, just to continue on.

Not sure if he is hall of fame worthy, but I wouldn't complain if he made it.

For his era he was certainly a great. He didn't start till 20 was never really babied or even appreciated by his countrymen until later, and was determined enough to live, train and fight abroad, learn fast from his mistakes and improve. He was both entertaining and vulnerable. He knew what it means to be put on your backside and yet did not build a style around retreating into his shell. I guess it's subjective but personally I think he was a great fighter like many of the lighter men and Japanese etc, it's easy to miss their relevance, but he had pedigree, and until his last few fights built a career with an upward trajectory as far as skill and mental know how was concerned.

There are a lot of mediocre fighters. I don't think Martinez was one of them.

[chris6878]

I thought the cotto fight was his retirement. After the fight was there any doubt that his knees were shot

[SlimTrae]

Sergio surely was a flashy fighter with pop to his Punch. Not sure I'd call him a great, even his era.

The writer uses quite a few adjectives to describe mediocrity. Extraordinary late start.

A string of sensational performances without naming these fights.
Murray, Barker, Pavlik and Williams. Not the best resume for 56 fights over 17 years.

Bunema is a decent journeyman that most fought to get to the top, same for Cintron-really flakey draw and weird stoppage, just to continue on.

Not sure if he is hall of fame worthy, but I wouldn't complain if he made it.

For his era he was certainly a great. He didn't start till 20 was never really babied or even appreciated by his countrymen until later, and was determined enough to live, train and fight abroad, learn fast from his mistakes and improve. He was both entertaining and vulnerable. He knew what it means to be put on your backside and yet did not build a style around retreating into his shell. I guess it's subjective but personally I think he was a great fighter like many of the lighter men and Japanese etc, it's easy to miss their relevance, but he had pedigree, and until his last few fights built a career with an upward trajectory as far as skill and mental know how was concerned.

There are a lot of mediocre fighters. I don't think Martinez was one of them.

Solid case.

[Alpha]

Anyone else heard Martinez is returning, and against Chavez Jr.

I hope it's not true.