Sergio Gabriel Martínez (born 21 February 1975) is an Argentine
professional boxer. He has held world championships in two
weight classes, including the
WBC super welterweight title from 2009 to 2010; and the
unified WBC,
WBO
The World Boxing Organization (WBO) is an organization which sanctions professional boxing bouts. It is recognized by the International Boxing Hall of Fame (IBHOF) as one of the four major world championship groups, alongside the World Boxing ...
, ''
Ring'' magazine and
lineal middleweight
Middleweight is a weight class in combat sports.
Boxing Professional
In professional boxing, the middleweight division is contested above and up to .
Early boxing history is less than exact, but the middleweight designation seems to have be ...
titles between 2010 and 2014. With six successful defenses of the ''Ring'' and lineal middleweight titles, Martínez's 50-month reign as champion ranks as one of the longest in the history of that weight class.
In 2010 he was granted the
Konex Award Merit Diploma as one of the five best boxers of the last decade in Argentina. In 2011, Martínez reached a career high ranking as the world's third best active boxer,
pound for pound, behind
Floyd Mayweather Jr. and
Manny Pacquiao, as voted by most sporting news and boxing publications, including ''
Sports Illustrated
''Sports Illustrated'' (''SI'') is an American sports magazine first published in August 1954. Founded by Stuart Scheftel, it was the first magazine with circulation over one million to win the National Magazine Award for General Excellence tw ...
'',
ESPN
ESPN (originally an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Communications (20%). The ...
,
Yahoo! Sports, and ''The Ring''. In 2010 he received Fighter of the Year awards by both ''
The Ring'' and the
Boxing Writers Association of America The Boxing Writers Association of America (BWAA) was originally formed in 1926 as the Boxing Writers Association of Greater New York. The association's purpose is to promote better working conditions for boxing writers, as well as hold its writers ...
, as well as ''The Rings
Knockout of the Year for his rematch victory against
Paul Williams. The WBC named him their Boxer of the Year in 2010 and 2012.
A
southpaw, Martínez was known as a fast and athletic fighter and his style has been described as "crowd-pleasing", partly because of his tendency to fight with his hands down when out of his opponents' range.
Outside the ring, Martínez has been an active spokesperson in the fight against bullying and domestic violence against women. He is the author of a book, ''Corazón de Rey'' ("Heart of a King"), and is said to be working on a second book.
Early life
Sergio Martínez was born on 21 February 1975 in
Avellaneda
Avellaneda (, ) is a port city in the province of Buenos Aires, Argentina, and the seat of the Avellaneda Partido, whose population was 342,677 as per the . Avellaneda is located within the Greater Buenos Aires metropolitan area, and is conne ...
to parents Hugo Alberto Martínez and Susana Griselda. Shortly afterwards the family relocated to the nearby city of
Quilmes, which is also in the
Buenos Aires Province. His father worked as a construction worker and metal worker, a trade which Sergio Martínez joined along with his two brothers, Sebastian and Hugo Jr. Martínez was
bullied as a child in his "dirt-poor rural village."
Before boxing, Martínez was a keen cyclist and
football player and it was not until 1995 that he decided he would become a boxer. After being trained by his uncle, Ruben Paniagua, Martínez began boxing as an amateur and compiled a record of 39–2 (39 wins to 2 losses), the losses came by way of majority decision and knockout. His boxing career suffered a major setback in August 1996 when he broke his left hand, forcing him out of the sport for a year. Although he considered competing for Argentina at the 2000 Olympics, he decided that he was too old to wait the two and a half years and chose to turn professional in December 1997.
Professional career
Early years in Argentina
Martínez at the age of 22, had his first professional fight on 27 December 1997 in
Ituzaingo, Buenos Aires, Argentina. The opponent for his professional debut, Cristian Marcelo Vivas, was disqualified in the second round, giving Martínez his first win. Martínez fought the first 17 fights of his career in his native Argentina, compiling a record of 16–0–1. The only blemish on his record at this point occurred in his third fight, a draw against Mario Javier Nieva over four rounds. Martínez rematched Nieva four months later and won a six-round unanimous decision.
After facing a relatively low level of opposition for his first 17 fights in Argentina, Martínez fought abroad for the first time, travelling to the United States to face
Antonio Margarito on the undercard to the first
Érik Morales vs
Marco Antonio Barrera bout. The fight took place on 19 February 2000 at the
Mandalay Bay in
Las Vegas
Las Vegas (; Spanish for "The Meadows"), often known simply as Vegas, is the 25th-most populous city in the United States, the most populous city in the state of Nevada, and the county seat of Clark County. The city anchors the Las Veg ...
. The contest started badly for Martínez as Margarito scored a knockdown in the first round. Although Martínez recovered and had some success in the early rounds, he was hurt by a number of punches in round seven leading to a stoppage by the referee, thus handing Martínez his first loss. Following the Margarito fight, Martínez returned to Argentina and fought eight times, all victories, from April 2000 – February 2002. During this run of fights he won the Argentina
welterweight title after outpointing Javier Alejandro Blanco. He successfully defended the title once, knocking out Sergio Ernesto Acuna in the seventh round, before being stripped of the title.
Relocation to Spain
After his final fight in Argentina, a February 2002 win over Francisco Mora, Martínez decided to relocate to Spain. It was there that he began his partnership with his current trainer Gabriel Sarmiento, who worked out of a gym in
Azuqueca de Henares
Azuqueca de Henares is a municipality located in the province of Guadalajara, Castile-La Mancha, Spain. According to the 2013 census (INE), the municipality had a population of 34.685 inhabitants. The mayor of Azuqueca is José Luis Blanco.
H ...
. During his time in Spain, Martínez also worked jobs such as; nightclub bouncer, dishwasher, construction worker and did modelling jobs for Adidas and Nike. From April 2002 – May 2003 he fought four times in Spain, all eight-round fights that he won against weak opposition, two of his opponents had lost their last six fights. This was to change in his next fight however, as he took on Richard Williams in England for the lightly regarded
IBO light middleweight title. Martínez, who entered the ring as an underdog, having had only eight days preparation,
won a unanimous decision. Although Williams scored knockdowns in the second and eleventh rounds, he was close to being stopped in the final round and the scorecards were heavily in Martínez's favour. He defended the IBO title twice in the United Kingdom; a twelfth round knock-out victory of Adrian Stone in Bristol was followed by a rematch against Williams in Belfast, on this occasion Williams was stopped in the ninth round. Over the next two and a half years, Martínez won seven fights in a row back in Spain, six of which were against boxers who had losing records.
Soon thereafter, Martínez began to gain recognition and pursue fights in the United States, under the guidance of adviser
Sampson Lewkowicz
Sampson Lewkowicz (born January 10, 1951, in Montevideo) is an Uruguayan-American boxing promoter and manager, whose notable clients have included Sergio Martinez, Magomed Abdusalamov, Javier Fortuna, and Gabriel Campillo. Lewkowicz is also cred ...
.
Light middleweight
Martínez vs. Cintron
Martínez claimed the Interim
WBC light middleweight championship on 4 October 2008, beating Alex Bunema via an eighth round retirement.
On 14 February 2009 Martínez fought to a majority draw against
Puerto Rican Kermit Cintron Kermit may refer to:
*Kermit the Frog, ''The Muppets'' character
* Kermit Roosevelt (disambiguation), any of several descendants of U. S. President Theodore Roosevelt
* Kermit (given name)
*Kermit, the stage name for Paul Leveridge of Black Grape
...
. The fight was controversial for a number of reasons; during the seventh round Martínez knocked Cintron down with a clean left hand shot and the referee reached the count of ten and waved the fight off. However, this was disputed by Cintron, who claimed that the knockdown was a result of a headbutt but actually the headbutt which Cintron claimed to have happened was actually an extremely powerful and accurate cross from Sergio Martínez. Cintron's protestations led to the referee overturning his decision and the fight continued. The fight went the twelve round distance and the scorecards revealed a draw, many ringside observers felt that the decision was a robbery and that Martínez easily outboxed Cintron and should have gained the victory.
On 21 May 2009, WBC light middleweight champion
Vernon Forrest
Vernon Forrest (February 12, 1971 – July 25, 2009) was an American professional boxer who competed from 1992 to 2008. He held multiple world championships in two weight classes, including the WBC, IBF, ''Ring'' magazine and lineal welterweigh ...
was stripped of his title due to a rib injury that would leave him out of action indefinitely. Because of the injury and his inability to fight Sergio Martínez, Martínez's interim title was upgraded to full WBC title status. Although the organization also mandated that Martínez face Forrest, that bout would never happen. Less than a month later, Forrest was tragically murdered in Atlanta, GA.
Middleweight
Martínez vs. Williams I
On 5 December 2009 Martínez fought
Paul Williams in a non-title
middleweight
Middleweight is a weight class in combat sports.
Boxing Professional
In professional boxing, the middleweight division is contested above and up to .
Early boxing history is less than exact, but the middleweight designation seems to have be ...
bout at
Atlantic City's
Boardwalk Hall in a fight that was later described as a fight of the year candidate. In the first round Williams and Martínez would both knock each other down once. Martínez would then seem to control the next two rounds with effective power punching. Then Williams seemed to narrowly take control of the fight when he seemingly won rounds 4, 5, 6 and 7 by landing hard left hands to the side of Martínez's head. Rounds 8–10 then signified that the fight would be close on the score-cards when Martínez won those rounds by repeating what he did in rounds 2 and 3. Then in the final 2 rounds (11–12), both fighters began to fade although the exchanges remained very closely contested, although Williams was far more active and therefore would seemingly win those final 2 rounds based on the fact that he was far more active in the last 2 rounds of the fight. That would turn out to be the case as Williams would escape with a majority decision victory with scores of 114–114, 119–110 (for Williams) and 115–113 (for Williams).
Martínez vs. Pavlik
After an impressive performance against Paul Williams, Sergio Martínez stayed at middleweight and challenged WBC, WBO, ''The Ring'' and lineal middleweight champion
Kelly Pavlik. The fight took place in Atlantic City's Boardwalk Hall on 17 April 2010. Martínez defeated Pavlik via unanimous decision in a bout which saw Martínez overcome a knockdown in the seventh round and go on to dominate a majority of the remaining rounds in the fight. Pavlik had cuts above both eyes for several rounds, which did not stop bleeding. He said they affected his vision and performance. Although there was a rematch clause in the contract, Pavlik chose not to enforce it, stating his desire to move up in weight. The victory over Pavlik earned Martínez the WBC, WBO, ''Ring'' and lineal middleweight championships.
With Martínez winning the middleweight championship, he was required to make some decisions regarding his conflicting WBC light middleweight title. The sanctioning organizations for boxing recognize that boxers may choose to move up or down in the weight categories, yet they also wish to make all championship belts available to challenge. As such, their rules prohibit a fighter from simultaneously holding belts in multiple divisions. This prohibition includes holding a title with one sanctioning organization while also holding a title in a different weight class with a different organization. Eight weeks after the Pavlik fight, when Martínez failed to announce a preference to be a light middleweight or a middleweight champion (the WBO rules allow ten days to decide), the WBO stripped him of their middleweight title. A week later, Martínez did inform the WBC that he was willing to vacate their Light Middleweight title and maintain his WBC Middleweight belt.
Martínez vs. Williams II
On 20 November 2010, Sergio got a chance to avenge his loss to Williams. Both fighters were ranked among the top six pound-for-pound fighters, and Williams came into the fight as the ''Ring'' No. 2 ranked Middleweight. Many speculated that this would be a fight of the year candidate. Approximately one minute into the second round, Martínez knocked Williams out with an over-the-top left hand to retain his title. The knockout was called by many as the knockout of the year.
Williams stated to Max Kellerman after the fight, "He caught me with a punch I did not see."
Martínez vs. Dzinziruk
Sergio Martínez's next fight was against undefeated
Sergiy Dzindziruk on 12 March 2011 at the
Foxwoods Resort Casino
Foxwoods Resort Casino is a hotel and casino complex owned and operated by the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation on their reservation located in Ledyard, Connecticut. Including six casinos, the resort covers an area of . The casinos have more ...
,
Mashantucket, winning by TKO in 8 rounds. Dzindziruk, the WBO light middlweight champion, was knocked down five times in the fight.
Martinez was also awarded the WBC Diamond belt.
Martínez vs. Barker
Martínez then fought undefeated
EBU middleweight champion
Darren Barker on 1 October at the
Boardwalk Hall in
Atlantic City. He knocked Barker out with an extremely powerful right hook and put Barker to his knees in the 11th round.
Many boxing analysts and experts said that Darren Barker has the skills and ring generalship to one day become a champion, but that his skills were not perfected enough to do anything against Martínez. The first few rounds showed that Barker was actually able to make Martínez uncomfortable in the ring and give him more trouble than expected. Throughout the fight, Barker consistently gave Martínez problems, while never hurting him or really ever winning any of the rounds, he gave Martínez a challenge by coming in but not giving much offence to let Martínez counter or land anything clean. He also managed to get Martínez's nose to bleed early in the rounds by an upper-cut. Martínez, however, fought through the difficulty and eventually found openings which led to a knock-out of Barker, in the 11th with a right
hook.
Martínez vs. Macklin
Sergio successfully defended his ''The Ring'' title against the No. 3 Ring Middleweight
Matthew Macklin
Matthew Macklin (born 14 May 1982) is a British-Irish former professional boxer who competed from 2001 to 2016, and has since worked as a boxing manager and commentator. He challenged three times for middleweight world titles between 2011 and 2 ...
of Ireland on 17 March 2012 at the
Madison Square Garden in New York City. Macklin was coming off a very impressive performance against middleweight champion
Felix Sturm prior his fight with Martínez, a fight that many felt Macklin won, but he lost a controversial decision to Sturm in Germany. Macklin unexpectedly threw vigorous hooks and jabs that left Martínez behind on the scorecards and left Martínez in a sense of urgency. The
Madison Square Garden crowd was largely pro-Macklin. The fight was featured on
BBC's boxing schedule for 2011:
"18: Madison Square Garden, New York City, Sergio Martinez beat Matthew Macklin by 11th-round KO (The Ring middleweight). ".
Martínez struggled in the first half of the fight, with Macklin able to time Martínez very well, which neutralized much of Sergio's offensive attack (and would even score a knock-down on Martínez in the seventh round). Martínez was able to turn the tide in the later rounds, finding his range with his left hand. After scoring two knockdowns in the 11th, Macklin's corner stopped the fight shortly before the 12th round.
Martínez vs. Chávez Jr.
This fight was notable in that the WBC did not initially want Chávez Jr. to fight Martinez. Chávez Jr.'s godfather was the head of WBC and refused to allow the fight, even after a unanimous vote to allow the unbeaten champion to fight the current title holder.
Martinez prepped for this fight against Chavez Jr. in Oxnard, California training under his career long coach, Gabriel Sarmiento. Martínez fought
Julio César Chávez Jr. on 15 September 2012, at the
Thomas & Mack Center in
Paradise, Nevada for Chávez Jr.'s
WBC Middleweight title. Martínez won by unanimous decision after surviving a 12th round knock down following a dominant performance over the first 11 rounds.
ESPN
ESPN (originally an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Communications (20%). The ...
, and
The Los Angeles Times all gave round-by-round reports on the fight.
Martínez out worked and out landed Chávez throughout the first 11 rounds of the fight, in dominating fashion. Though Chávez had his moments trapping Martínez in the corner on the ropes, Martínez fought Chávez and used his fast lateral movement to avoid and neutralize Chávez' offensive attack. Chávez hurt Martinez in the 12th round, sending him to the canvas halfway through the round. Martínez got up with a little over one minute left in the fight, and rather than clinch or hold on to Chávez, Martínez continued to throw and trade blows with the Mexican. Despite being fatigued and clearly hurt, Sergio Martínez managed to survive the thrilling 12th round without holding. Martínez won the fight by unanimous decision, by the scores of 117–110, 118–109, and 118–109. After the fight, it was revealed that Martínez had broken his left hand (as early as the 4th round) and torn his right meniscus, the latter of which would require surgery.
After the fight, Chávez tested positive for
cannabis
''Cannabis'' () is a genus of flowering plants in the family Cannabaceae. The number of species within the genus is disputed. Three species may be recognized: '' Cannabis sativa'', '' C. indica'', and '' C. ruderalis''. Alternative ...
. As a result, he received a fine of $20,000 and was indefinitely suspended by the
World Boxing Council.
Martínez vs. Murray
After his surgery, Martínez confirmed his next title defense would take place in his native
Argentina
Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the List of South American countries by area, second-largest ...
, in what would be his first fight in his home country since leaving for Spain in 2002. News agency
Reuters
Reuters ( ) is a news agency owned by Thomson Reuters Corporation. It employs around 2,500 journalists and 600 photojournalists in about 200 locations worldwide. Reuters is one of the largest news agencies in the world.
The agency was est ...
reported that Martínez could make his first title defense against British fighter
Martin Murray on 27 April 2013 in
Argentina
Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the List of South American countries by area, second-largest ...
. Martínez defeated ''Ring'' Top 10 Middleweight
Martin Murray by a controversial unanimous decision. Many observers stated that there had been a clear deterioration in Martínez since the Chávez Jr. bout.
Martínez vs. Cotto
After a series of setbacks including further surgeries on his knees, Martínez fought again over a year after the Murray fight, losing his WBC, ''The Ring'' and lineal middleweight titles to three-division former world champion
Miguel Cotto on 7 June 2014, at
Madison Square Garden in
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
. It was evident straight away that Martinez's legs were not there, even with knee braces on and clearly visible, Cotto knocked Martínez down three times in the first round. After the first round however, he began to make the fight competitive with Cotto. He continued to fight back until round nine when Martínez went down once again. Following the ninth round, trainer Pablo Sarmiento decided to call off the fight prior to the tenth round while still in the corner, against the urging of Martínez. According to reports, Sarmiento told Martínez "Champion, your knees are not responding. Sergio, look at me ... I'm gonna stop this one. Sergio, you are the best for me. You'll always be the best champion, Sergio."
Following the bout, Martínez stated that he wanted to continue his boxing career, and expressed his desire to fight against
Manny Pacquiao and
Floyd Mayweather Jr. However, on 13 June 2015, Martínez announced his retirement from boxing at the age of 40, stating that both aging and knee injuries were the causes for his decision.
Personal life
Martinez still resides in
Madrid
Madrid ( , ) is the capital and most populous city of Spain. The city has almost 3.4 million inhabitants and a metropolitan area population of approximately 6.7 million. It is the second-largest city in the European Union (EU), and ...
, Spain. He is divorced and once dated sports commentator
Silvana Carsetti.
Activism
Martinez has been presented with an award for helping
bullied children. He has also championed the cause of
domestic violence against women. He attended a news conference to support legislation involving the
Violence Against Women Act. Martinez was quoted as saying: "With domestic violence, no one wanted to touch the subject with a 10-foot pole. I was interested in the issue that a boxer, who dishes out violence, could also be thoughtful and do something and people would listen to someone like me. I thought I could have the most impact by speaking out on the issue."
Professional boxing record
Pay-per-view bouts
See also
*
List of world light-middleweight boxing champions
This is a chronological List of World Super Welterweight / Junior Middleweight / Light Middleweight Boxing Champions, as recognized by four of the better-known sanctioning organizations:
* The World Boxing Association (WBA), founded in 1921 as th ...
*
List of world middleweight boxing champions
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Martinez, Sergio
1975 births
Living people
Sportspeople from Avellaneda
Bailando por un Sueño (Argentine TV series) participants
People from Quilmes
Sportspeople from Oxnard, California
Argentine male boxers
Southpaw boxers
Argentine people of Spanish descent
Argentine expatriate sportspeople in Spain
World Boxing Council champions
World Boxing Organization champions
World middleweight boxing champions
The Ring (magazine) champions
Welterweight boxers
World light-middleweight boxing champions
International Boxing Organization champions