On June 4th Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. pulled out a tougher-than-expected majority decision over Germany’s Sebastian Zbik in a grueling fight. Taking place inside the Staples Center in Los Angeles, Chavez-Zbik was a showcase of both Chavez’s grit as well as his limitations in certain areas.
On the undercard to Chavez-Zbik, former female champion Christy Martin returned to the ring after a nearly two-year absence as she met Dakota Stone in a rematch in pursuit of her 50th win as a professional. But while the record books will forever show Martin coming up short by way of 6th round TKO, there is much more to her recent story than meets the eye.
With Martin in her corner was trainer and respected cut man Miguel Diaz, who gave me his take on the fight.
“The fight was in Christy’s favor,” Diaz told me. “When they stopped the fight in the sixth round she was ahead on all three judges’ [cards]. The problem was, in the fourth round, she hit her with a straight right hand right at the temple and she came to the corner and she said ‘I broke my hand’.”
Sure enough, Martin would fracture her hand in three places, and despite fighting on the fight was eventually halted.
“Immediately I turned around and I saw the referee,” Diaz continued. “I told her ‘Don’t say a thing’. To make a long story short, the referee asked Christy if she broke her hand and she said ‘No’. We fought the fifth round with a broken hand. Everybody saw it. At the start of the sixth and final round, she pulled her hand a little bit and that’s when the referee called the doctor and they stopped the fight.”
Definitely a case of hard luck but Diaz has been around the sport over sixty years and recognizes how the game is. As our talk continued he noted that he didn’t stick around to watch Chavez’s victory over Zbik and didn’t seem interested in one day seeing the 25-year old Mexican in the ring with Miguel Cotto as it had been rumored, instead showing interest in a rematch between Cotto and Antonio Margarito.
