Sergio 'Maravilla' Martinez retires

The magnificent Argentine southpaw has retired after the damaged knees showed no signs of getting better. A fantastic career and a fantastic person.

Retires with a fight record of 51-3-2(probably should've been 53-2-1 as he was robbed against Williams and Cintron). His reign 50 month reign as linear middleweight champion is one of the longest in history. Also won a title at super welterweight. Shame he went out with the defeat to the undeserving Cotto.

Not surprising at all, really. He looked so bad against Cotto that there was no way you could realistically just put it down as a bad day at the office - he looked like a shot fighter.

I soured a little bit towards Martinez in the last eighteen months or so of his reign due to him and Di Bella brushing off a possible Golovkin fight for the very same reasons which had caused them to be all tooth and nail when Chavez Jr used them as he tried to weasel his way out of facing Sergio.

But overall I'd put myself down as a Martinez admirer. I felt he added a bit of extra class to the Middleweight division once he'd got to the top of it with his athletic, reflexes-based style and counter punching, and 'tis always good to see someone getting their dues later on in their career. His knockout of Williams was sensational and I enjoyed his performances against Pavlik and Macklin, too.

I know he's involved in some great causes outside of boxing as well, and is said to have made a pretty penny from other ventures in addition to the $1m + paydays he eventually got towards the end of his career, so all the more power to him. Seems like a good bloke.

Top fighter and definitely worthy of his place in history as a 'true' Middleweight champion. Hope he enjoys retirement.

Enjoy your retirement Sergio

Will probably go in history as much for his good looks as his boxing.

Super fighter, fought everyone around him, even the most avoided.

Also hated the notion of multiple belts and always want to be the best

Enjoy your retirement Sergio!

88Chris05 wrote:Not surprising at all, really. He looked so bad against Cotto that there was no way you could realistically just put it down as a bad day at the office - he looked like a shot fighter.

I soured a little bit towards Martinez in the last eighteen months or so of his reign due to him and Di Bella brushing off a possible Golovkin fight for the very same reasons which had caused them to be all tooth and nail when Chavez Jr used them as he tried to weasel his way out of facing Sergio.

But overall I'd put myself down as a Martinez admirer. I felt he added a bit of extra class to the Middleweight division once he'd got to the top of it with his athletic, reflexes-based style and counter punching, and 'tis always good to see someone getting their dues later on in their career. His knockout of Williams was sensational and I enjoyed his performances against Pavlik and Macklin, too.

I know he's involved in some great causes outside of boxing as well, and is said to have made a pretty penny from other ventures in addition to the $1m + paydays he eventually got towards the end of his career, so all the more power to him. Seems like a good bloke.

Top fighter and definitely worthy of his place in history as a 'true' Middleweight champion. Hope he enjoys retirement.

To be fair Chris, he knew he was finished at that point and probably wanted a pay day, rather than permanent damage against Golovkin who was high risk, very low reward.

You should check out the Maravilla film if you have Netflix, describes the Chavez situation in detail and the hoops they had to jump through to get it. Also shows how badly injured he was towards the end of his career and still put in top performances

My pesonal favourite quote from that is "I'm the WBC emeritus champion, do you know what it is? I don't know what the **** that is, but it sounds good"

Strongback wrote:Will probably go in history as much for his good looks as his boxing.

erm......................

He is a rather good looking man.

One of my favourite boxers in his pomp. All the best for the future.

Soldier_Of_Fortune wrote:One of my favourite boxers in his thong. All the best for the future.

Fixed that for you.

I too am glad that he's retired. There's not much worse than watching an old, washed up fighter continuing to fight still believing that they're still a top fighter so yes again, I'm glad that he retired and hope he enjoys his life and finds something else that he enjoys to do.

That said though, didn't he know that he had shot knees when he entered the ring against Cotto? If he did, wasn't it just as bad as Manny fighting Floyd with a bum shoulder? I don't feel that it's fair that fans were mislead into forking out cash for a fighter who had no chance of winning due to his knees, just so he could cash in one final time.

I guess you could give him the benefit of the doubt, maybe he kidded himself the adrenalin would see him through against the smaller man. Or maybe he just took the pay check. Hard to say.

I think barker sturm was probably the worst example of that... But then barker hadn't had the previous paydays or so much of a legacy to trash. In one respect that makes it worse, in another, more understandable. Still ripping off the punters though.

There are differences, Atila. For one, Martinez asked for permission to fight with a knee brace. In fighter language, he basically wrote out "bum knee" in sharp neon colours on the New York night sky.

I think Sergio was caught cold against Cotto. That's what he's said himself. I doubt he thought he'd need his wheels as much as he did that night, probably thought he'd have enough power and size to walk Cotto down. However after that first, huge left, he needed to get on his bike and he just didn't have the legs to get away. I remember going into the fight having Sergio as favourite and hoping Cotto would give a good account of himself, a minute into the fight it became clear he was going to do a little better than that.

As for his career as a whole, I thought Martinez was brilliant. Class to watch and chased the big fights, a good story as well about him leaving Quilmes for Spain and coming late to the sport.

I lived in Argentina when he was in his pomp and he was a hero there, around the time of the Macklin fight I'm sure he won Argentine SPOTY, which considering the competition shows his popularity. Also the missus thinks he's a dreamboat.

Also if Sergio did go in a wreck, at least he had the common sense to button it in the aftermath. Manny declared nothing, fought terribly and then complained to anyone with ears that he was injured. Can't have it both ways.

I Like Martinez, excellent boxer and an all round great guy. However I dont think he was robbed against Williams and I thought he rode his luck against Pavlik a bit. Just a tad overrated in my opinion. He benefited from his two big wins putting him as the king of a shallow division, and also the fact that he was long used as a stick to beat Mayweather with.

Always felt he had a great style to beat mayweather. 5'10, great handspeed, great footspeed, good chin, one punch ko power, he had it all imo. Hes not unbeatable by any means but hes a handful for anyone, one of my favourite boxers just a shame he couldnt entice Cotto into a fight when he could actually fight back

I remember Margarito beating the crap out of him........

Overachiever for me..............and kudos to him for it........

Not in the league of Hoppo, Toney, Nunn............

I didnt really like him. I thought he was pretty overrated as a boxer but he was became a bit of a poster boy for being a boxing fans boxer.

For a guy who was outspoken about too many belts in boxing, he didnt have a problem holding the WBC silver belt (eh?). Or for a boxer who was dead against avoiding rivals he hadnt much problem swerving Golovkin. He got what he deserved against Cotto. Tried to pick on a small guy for a pay day that they though they could get away with beating despite not being fit. Backfired big time.

I kind of agree with catchy. He was the 'robbed' underdog fans favourite before matthysse and Lara. Came across as a nice enough guy but I never really warmed to him as other's did. It wasn't the greatest era.

Not sure given his size he was ever a fair rod to beat mayweather with. He might have started at welter, but Floyd was a super feather back then.

Wish the guy well in retirement, a fight too late or otherwise.

Lance, with regards to Martinez riding his luck against Pavlik, do you mean the cuts mate?

Pavlik definitely had a good spell from rounds 5-8. He certainly won three of those four rounds clearly, some might say all four, and obviously got a 10-8 in the seventh (I thought the knockdown shouldn't have been called as the legs were definitely tangled and Martinez did trip to a large degree, but that's by the by). Martinez opened up the really bad cut(s) in the ninth and Pavlik definitely lost heart, confidence and the momentum he'd been building up when that happened which helped Martinez's cause, and he did seem to have problems seeing Martinez's left coming in the final few rounds.

Without the cuts maybe the final third of the fight plays out differently - but at the end of the day, Martinez did that to Pavlik with a crisp shot right on the button, and then went to work on worsening the cut pretty effectively. He also showed a willingness to switch it up and fight more aggressively from the ninth onwards once he realised that he couldn't keep throwing singles and darting away on the outside as Pavlik was building up too much forward momentum for that to be aggressive. He started taking the play away from Pavlik even before the cut opened by standing his ground more and letting his hands go more freely.

You could argue that Martinez was fortunate that Pavlik's vision was affected and that he also seemed to wilt mentally after the cuts whereas others might have thrown caution to the wind, but I'd still have that one down as a fight where Martinez made it go back in his favour with his own brilliance on the night. He was spotting Pavlik 11 lb on fight night, after all.

One of my favorite boxers of recent times. Shame to see how quickly he degraded after his knee issues, he was a great fighter to watch and by all accounts a thoroughly nice guy.

Honest fighter who was screwed over by the networks over Chavez jnr but still got his revenge.