One win ended the stranglehold placed on a middleweight title picture that managed to underwhelm in recent years.
One punch ended the stranglehold that Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather have held on the Fighter of the Year category for the past several years.
BOXINGSCENE.COM 2010 FIGHTER OF THE YEAR ? SERGIO ?MARAVILLA? MARTINEZ
In a year where not very much happened, 35-year old Sergio Martinez still managed to go all in, never settling for the bare minimum. His hard work has finally reaped major dividends, including the lineal middleweight championship and universal recognition as the year?s most outstanding fighter.
The past 12 months have been a far cry from what the Argentinean-born southpaw has been accustomed to in his previous 12 years spent as a prizefighter. Recent years have seen Martinez earn accolades as one of the game?s best pure talents. The downside on his end was that the risk never quite matched the reward as far as the opposition was concerned.
Signs of positive change came in late 2008, when the then-rising junior middleweight was given a slot on American cable giant HBO. He made the most of his opportunity, stopping resurging challenger Alex Bunema in eight one sided rounds.
The following year wasn?t anywhere nearly as kind, going 0-1-1 in a year when most felt he should?ve won both of his ring appearances.
He was robbed twice in one fight against Kermit Cintron, being denied what was initially ruled a seventh-round knockout, before getting jerked on the scorecards at the end of the night in being forced to settle for a majority draw.
After nearly ten months of forced ring activity due to being avoided like the plague and ignored by the cable networks, Martinez filled in for Kelly Pavlik as a late replacement in a December non-title bout against Paul Williams. The bout wound up becoming one of the year?s best, with both fighters hitting the deck in the opening round and throwing down throughout before Williams escaped with a disputed majority decision win.
Despite officially going winless, Martinez earned the respect of the boxing world and the opportunity to perform in front of a worldwide audience.
Stil, it only added up to moral victories ? a nice way of saying he didn?t win.
What the year taught him was to not leave his fate in the hands of others.
The first step towards proving that theory true was his performance against Pavlik in their middleweight championship bout in April. Pavlik entered the fight having served as champion for more than two years, though in a reign recognized as one of the most disappointing in recent boxing history.
Needless to say, the sport was ready for change.
Despite just one previous bout spent at middleweight ? his first fight with Williams four months prior ? Martinez appeared to fit the uniform well, jumping out to an early lead. Included in his perceived sweeping of the first four rounds was drawing blood, as Pavlik suffered a cut in the opening round.
Things appeared to head south in the fifth round, the first round Martinez lost on the cards though certainly not the last. Pavlik threatened to assume full control of the bout, taking all of the middle rounds as well as scoring a surprise knockdown in the seventh round.
Then, something clicked.
Martinez resumed control of the fight ? and his career, in the process ? in the ninth and never looked back. Pavlik suffered another cut, this one over his left eye, and this one proving to be a game-changer. With each passing round, the soon-to-be-ex-champion and his team appeared more and more helpless, unable to solve Martinez? hand speed and combination punching as the Argentinean swept the final four rounds.
Unlike the in-ring horrors he suffered the previous year, the judges got it right this time around, with unanimous scores in his favor. With his win came the honor of becoming the first Argentinean fighter in 40 years to capture the middleweight crown, following in the footsteps of the legendary Carlos Monzon, whom many argue is the greatest middleweight of all time.
Even with such lofty honors, the best was yet to come.
As was the case in previous years, the politics of the sport forced another stretch of inactivity. Simply put, HBO wanted to see a Martinez-Williams rematch, and didn?t seem big on allowing either fighter to appear on their airwaves against any other opponent.
Martinez realized the score and quickly agreed to every last demand made by Williams and his handlers, even though he was the one putting his world championship on the line. For the sake of returning to the ring in a worthy title fight, he agreed to a catchweight of 158 lb, and also for Williams to enter the ring second, a role always reserved for the champion.
Four minutes and one booming left hand later, all of that became trivial.
The first round seemed to mirror what took place in the first fight ? Williams was busy, Martinez was precise and effective. Could it be that the writing was on the wall for Martinez to once again get screwed?
Not if he could help it.
He did help it ? and himself ? landing the mother of all left hands one minute into the second round. The punch left Williams knocked out cold long before his face and body slammed against the canvas.
There has been much debate over exactly what type of punch it was with which Martinez hit paydirt. Was it an overhand left? A left cross? A rear left hook thrown from the southpaw stance.
Boxing experts continue to argue the specifics of the punch to this very day.
However, the effects of that one single punch created one indisputable fact ? that Sergio ?Maravilla? Martinez is undoubtedly 2010?s Fighter of the Year.
RUNNER UP ? GIOVANI SEGURA
For years, Giovani Segura has called to task promoter Top Rank to match him up with the best junior flyweights in the world, specifically the best of them all in lineal champion Ivan Calderon.
Segura received his wish this past August and turned in the performance of a lifetime. Will conquered skill as Segura traveled to Puerto Rico to outfight and eventually knock out Calderon in eight rounds of their championship bout, one that opened up the Fight of the Year race (winning in the eyes of the Boxingscene.com staff) and entered the diminutive slugger in the mix for this particular category.
While Martinez put an end to the debate once he knocked out Williams in November, it didn?t mean the rest of the field had to stop trying. One week after the Fighter of the Year race was closed, Segura still left his mark, dominating Manuel Vargas en route to seventh round stoppage in a non-title bout just above the flyweight limit.
The win over Vargas extended Segura?s win streak to seven straight ? all inside of the distance, including four in a 2010 campaign that stood out as among the best in the sport.
Honorable Mention: Not even a motorcycle crash could slow down Fernando Montiel, who managed to score four knockouts in as many fights in 2010. The crowning achievement of his year ? and career ? came in rallying back to knock out Hozumi Hasegawa in their April unification bout? Juan Manuel Lopez scored three stoppage wins in 2010, all in a new weight class and all in very different fashion. Moving up in weight, Lopez won an alphabet featherweight belt with his one-sided ninth round stoppage of Steven Luevano in January. Six months later, he was forced to climb off of the canvas to really back and stop Bernabe Concepcion in two rounds, followed up by an eighth round stoppage of Rafael Marquez in a Fight of the Year contender? As sure is there are 12 months in a year, cruiserweight titlist Marco Huck can be relied upon to make four ring appearances in that same span. The talented German did just that, scoring one-sided knockouts over a trio of American challengers before barely outpointing previously unbeaten Denis Lebedev in December.
