April 17, 2010 – Picture by Sumio Fakuda I Listen to Round by Round Commentary
In an entertaining and highly tactical fight thirty five year old Argentinian Sergio Martinez (45-2-2. 24 ko’s) seized the World Boxing Council (WBC) and World Boxing Organization (WBO) Middleweight 160lbs titles from the twenty eight year old defending champion Kelly “The Ghost” Pavlik (36-2, 32 ko’s) in front of a boisterous crowd at the Board Walk Hall in Atlantic City New Jersey.
The former champion who stands almost a foot taller than Martinez tried to impose his will in the early rounds of the fight coming forward while jabbing and hooking as he tried to cut off the ring while Martinez a former WBC light middleweight (154) titlist used lateral movement and his awkward southpaw fighting stance to circle and back away before Kelly could get set to fire off or land any of his trademark bone crunching lead right power shots.
Midway through the fight got more heated as Pavlik seemed to narrow the gap and began landing some very hard strafing straight rights, even scoring a flash knockdown in round 7, but there was hell to pay every time he launched an assault by Martinez who countered heavily with triple feinting flurries to weaken Pavlik’s resolve as the fight progressed.
Martinez seized the initiative in the championship rounds completely dominating the now spent Pavlik swarming him with rapid fire combinative punches thrown from all angles that landed solid and clean and befuddled Pavlik further opening up the cuts that streamed blood into his eyes leaving him almost defenseless, ready to quit and eliciting cursory examinations by the ring physicians in between rounds to see if he could continue. But his corner rallied him into pursuing, missing and eating more flurries to the final bell to lose the fight by scores of 115-112, 115-111, 116-111 by the judges who awarded the unanimous decision victory to Martinez.
Post fight the new champion’s promoter Lou Dibella and Bob Arum who promotes Kelly Pavlik both confirmed that there was a rematch clause in place, and Martinez trainer declared that they would grant a rematch to Pavlik anytime. Kelly Pavlik did not attend the post fight press conference, but was represented by his trainer Jack Leow.
LISTEN TO BLOW BY BLOW ROUND COMMENTARY WITH OUR CHIEF SCRIBE MICHAEL AMAKOR
As in September, I once again ran out of gas in the 10th & 11th championship rounds of October & November with this column, but I recovered to complete them and will unleash a few more flurries to close out the 12th and final round.
In the first week of October, Hassan N’Dam won a UD over Curtis Stevens in an eliminator for the right to challenge Jermaine Taylor who defeated aging Sam Soliman to regain the IBF Middleweight title. How Taylor even earned this title shot is another story altogether, but it is all irrelevant as he is now the champion. However he will not have too much time to savor his victory as he has assault and battery charges pending against him and an upcoming court fight that may turn out to be the toughest fight of his life, just when things started to look up for him in boxing, we wish him luck.
