02/13/2020 - 18:04
- Clarín.com
- sports
- Do you plan on boxing again?
- No. Last year I was all ready to face Julio César Chávez Junior in Las Vegas. It even had a date: the fight was going to be on November 17. But in the end it was postponed. And I put that idea aside.
With that security, Sergio Gabriel Martínez ruled out in October last year the possibility of putting on gloves again. It was in an interview with Clarín a couple of days before the premiere of the movie Gunman , a western directed by Nicolás Galvagno who co-starred with Lautaro Delgado Tymruk. The acting streak was one that the quilmeño exploded since his retirement and with which he was most conspicuous. But first love seems to be stronger.
The decision is made: Wonder , who will turn 45 next Friday, will fight professionally again. This is assured by the team of the former superwelter and medium champion of the World Boxing Council (WBC). There is even a tentative seat and date for the return: it is scheduled to take place in Madrid on June 6, just one day before six years of its last presentation, when it fell by technical knockout in the 10th round before Puerto Rican Miguel Cotto at Madison Square Garden in New York.
In the hands of promoter Miguel De Pablos is the search for an adversary according to the needs. “He doesn't want an easy opponent and neither does a class A, which is logical after six years of retirement. But he wants a demanding one, ”they explain in Martínez's environment. Nor is defined the category in which the duel would be agreed. "It can give supermedia (76,205 kilos) quietly and could even go down to medium (72,562)," they say. The former champion had increased 23 kilos and had reached 100 for the shooting of Gunman , but now it is just above 80.
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If the return takes place, the great physical challenge does not seem to be centered in the balance, but in the state of his left knee, in which he suffered a serious ligament injury that limited him in the last segment of his career, especially in the fight against Cotto. "I am a former boxer, my knee is broken," he had acknowledged in an interview with the newspaper La Nación in May 2015, a month before formalizing his retirement.
That is why these days the focus of the preparation is on strengthening the lower train. The quilmeño is preparing by the hand of the Spanish coach Tinín Rodríguez at the Detroit Boxing Academy, a small gym in the historic center of Vallecas, on the outskirts of Madrid.
This is not the first time Martínez threatens to end his retirement. Between September and October 2018 he speculated with a rematch with Julio César Chavez (son), whom he had defeated by points on September 15, 2012 in Las Vegas, in a fight that clearly dominated for 11 rounds and was about to losing in the last lap, when the Mexican had him on the verge of knockout.
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"The fight is almost closed," Julio César Chavez (father) said. However, the balloon of that retaliation ended up deflating very quickly due to the difficulties that the Mexican fighter had to arrive in conditions to the date that was being considered (November 17 of that year) and in the expected weight (supermediate). Thus, the return to the Argentine quadrilaterals was nothing.
Sergio Martínez, in his role as Claudio Mendoza in Pistolero.
In the 68 months that have elapsed since his fall to Cotto, Martínez focused his attention on various ventures such as restaurants, gyms, a financial loan firm and a developer, MaravillaBox. However, much of his energy was focused on acting: in addition to his role in Gunman , he participated in the series Persuasion , performed a theatrical show of monologues and studied clown in Spain. However, nothing seems to have completely filled the gap left by boxing.
