Middleweight king Sergio Martinez is a fighter most regard as the third best in the world today, and even those who don’t probably have him ranked in the top five. To Martinez though, anything but number one isn’t good enough and in his mind there is only one way to get there, beating either Manny Pacquiao or Floyd Mayweather.
Speaking to Boxscorenews’ John Martinez today, Sergio was vocal on a number of topics, including how he would beat both Pacquiao and Mayweather, who he will fight next and more.
“I want to show that I am the pound-for-pound best in the world and in order to do that, I have to fight Mayweather or Manny Pacquiao.”
As much as Martinez might like the huge payday either might bring him though, the fact remains that both Mayweather and Pacquiao are far too small to realistically even consider taking on Martinez.
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Also both Mayweather and Pacquiao can make a lot more money fighting much easier opponents than Martinez, and no amount of taunting from the Argentinian is going to change that.
As a natural middleweight Martinez would likely comfortably beat either, but against fighters who started out more than thirty pounds below even junior middleweight, this is hardly anything to brag about.
The better way to prove his pound for pound dominance though would surely be to emulate Pacquiao and Mayweather’s achievements rather than trying to beat them. Both gained their status in the sport by moving up in weight and winning titles as they went.
Martinez is already rated as the best fighter across two divisions, and there isn’t any reason why he couldn’t either move up or clear out both the junior middleweight and middleweight divisions. Advertisement
At junior middleweight are the likes of fast rising star Saul Alvarez, Miguel Cotto, Vanes Martirosyan and even Martinez’s old nemesis Paul Williams.
At middleweight are the likes of Julio Cesar Chavez Jr, Felix Sturm and Dmitriy Pirog.
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Higher up still there are the remaining and former super six participants, Andre’s Ward and Dirrell, Carl Froch, Arthur Abraham, Glen Johnson and a soon to be returning Mikkel Kessler.
Those are as well as IBF champion Lucian Bute, a champion constantly looking for challengers in a division where the other top rated fighters are currently inaccessible.
The most bizarre thing Martinez came out with however was a dig at Manny Pacquiao’s recent opponent list:
“He is picking guys that are easy to beat so when you do this, it isn’t hard to be pound-for-pound and if we fought I would beat him by knock out.”
Surely though by trying to fight much smaller opponents Martinez would be guilty of exactly the same as he accuses Pacquiao of?
Regardless of how skillful Pacquiao and Mayweather might be, against a fighter of Martinez’s size either would be at a big disadvantage. Meaning that for Martinez, beating either wouldn’t be that much of an achievement.
To climb to the top then Martinez’s best bet according to his own opinion of Pacquiao’s opponents is simply to continue taking on more challenging opponents than Pacquiao does.
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