By Robert Brown: In this article I will be discussing a number of reasons why the most dominate middleweight in the world Sergio Martinez fails to attract the marquee names and possibly provide a solution to his current predicament.
When I think of Sergio Martinez’s current situation it reminds me of a former junior welterweight super star who faced a lot of the same hurdles that Martinez is now facing, his name is Aaron Pryor, who after failing to qualify for the 1976 US Olympic team languished in obscurity in the lightweight division fighting a bunch of faceless challenges in small arenas.
Despite a record of 23/0 in the lightweight division he had to move up to the junior welterweight division to receive a title shot in which he beat Antonio Kid Cervantes for the title, who had previously been dominated for a number of years. Aaron Pryor eventually got his big name fights against 3 time world champ Alexis Arguello and became one of the most successful junior welterweights of all time.
Aaron Pryor was lucky the Alexis Arguello was going after a record at that time which was 4 titles in 4 different weight divisions, so the fight fell in Pryors lap, however Sergio Martinez is not so lucky, in my opinion he is either going to have to move down to 154 or move up to 168 for 3 reasons, the depth of talent does not seem to be in the middleweight division, over all the money is not in the middleweight division and for some reason the W.B.C is not holding up their end of the bargain by forcing W.B.C champion Chavez Jr to face the rightful number 1 contender Sergio Martinez.
Unless Martinez moves up or down the division, preferably down, he will fritter away the rest of his career fighting European level fighters in the middleweight division.
Martinez in the past has repeatedly made callouts to fighters such as Mayweather and Pacquiao to come up and fight him, when in fact if there is any chance of these fights happening, which is extremely minimal, he is not the box office draw so he has to abide by their demands and their weight to have any chance of getting those particular opportunities, however my personal belief is that Martinez is too big and to skillful, on top of not carrying enough of a pay packet with him for either of those fighters to take that risk.
His best chance of landing a big name fight is in the 154lb division against Kotto Berto or Ortiz, who do not have the bargaining power of a Mayweather or Pacquiao, but still have big enough followers to create an interest in the fight and are more likely to be pressured into taking such a challenge.
Martinez is in his mid 30’s and if he does not make a move in the near future he will be like Aaron Pryor except for one thing, Pryor got his chance and Martinez may never get his.
So my advice to Martinez and his management team is to stop being so stubborn, swallow your pride, move out of the 160lb division and move down to 154 before it is to late because you haven’t got many fights left and you don’t want to be remembered in history as a what might have been with question marks over your entire career