Under the aura of Bonavena, Maravilla Martínez will have his baptism at Luna Park while holding the distant dream of being world champion again

Sergio Gabriel Martínez

was 15 months old and taking his first steps on May 22, 1976, when a bullet fired from a Remington 30-06 rifle killed

outside a Reno brothel.

This Tuesday,

, who is taking his last strides in boxing, although he still dreams of fighting for a world title again, will unite his path with that of the idol of Parque Patricios: he will star in the stellar fight of the evening at Luna Park which will accompany the preview of the

.

The event, for which tickets will not be sold, will be broadcast on ESPN and Star+ from 8:00 p.m.

Twenty-five years after his professional debut, with 61 fights on his resume (he has a record of 56 wins, 3 losses and 2 draws), several world titles and undisputed recognition, Martínez will live an initial experience: he will fight for the first time in the coliseum de Corrientes and Bouchard, which he only attended in October 1999 to see one of the shows with which

presented their most successful album in Buenos Aires:

.

This duel, in which he will have the Colombian Jhon Teherán as an adversary, will also mark the return of the quilmeño to the Argentine ring: his last performance in the country was on April 27, 2013, when he beat Englishman Martin Murray by points at the stadium José Amalfitani and retained the World Boxing Council middleweight title that 13 months later would yield to Puerto Rican Miguel Cotto.

That was his only performance in this corner of the planet since in March 2002 he packed his bags and traveled to Madrid, where he has been based ever since.

The clash against Tehran will be the sixth that

will face since he put his gloves back on in August 2020, after a six-year hiatus, to beat the Spanish José Miguel Fandiño by knockout in the seventh round in Torrelavega.

Although he emerged victorious from all five bouts in this second cycle of his career, he did so against opponents with few records (the only one with a valuable record was former World Cup challenger Brian Rose).

In his last presentation, on December 11, he knocked out American Noah Kidd in two episodes in Orlando.

With a legacy that nothing will change anymore and at an age when most of his colleagues have long retired, Martínez's continuity in sports seems guided by that reflection of the filmmaker from Santa Fe Fernando Birri on the value of the utopia that he once recounted Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano:

. "

In the case of the quilmeño, that utopia has the form of a fight for another world title (he was already a super welterweight champion of the WBC and a middleweight of that body and of the World Boxing Organization).

“I am 48 years old and I am still searching with the same insistence, the same desire and the same strength as when I was in my twenties.

I found the way to locate myself in life, which is looking for a goal without distractions.

I'm going straight towards that goal by taking the shortest path.

It is the most effective way to reach your destination, ”explained the boxer on February 22, a few hours after celebrating his 48th birthday.

With the calendar as an extra adversary, that road is turning out to be quite long for him.

At 48, Sergio Maravilla Martínez is still excited about having another World Cup chance.

Since his return, Martínez set himself the goal of getting a World Cup chance.

The most feasible route always seemed to be the one offered by the World Boxing Association, beyond the discursive marches and counter-marches of its president,

.

In fact, his last fight was part of the billboard for the

festival , which took place as part of the WBA Centennial Convention.

And currently he occupies second place in the median ranking of the organization that recognizes the Cuban Erislandy Lara as champion.

Two weeks ago, a door

(or, at least, a small window) opened for

, but in just a few days it closed.

The Kazakh Gennadiy Golovkin, who held the WBA 160-pound super champion title and had to face a mandatory duel against Lara, relinquished his crown on March 9, for which the Caribbean was recognized as the only monarch of the division.

He remained to know before whom he would have to face his next defense.

The Panama-based body's number one ranking is Australian Michael Zerafa, who was negotiating to face Brazilian Esquiva Falcão for the International Boxing Federation title, which Golovkin had also vacated in February.

That strengthened the possibilities of the Argentine.

But the WBA Championships Committee shattered them on March 13, when it ordered Lara to face Zerafa.

Nothing suggests that the oceanic reject that opportunity.

Sergio Maravilla Martínez gives talks and boxing seminars during his stay in Buenos Aires.

While waiting for his golden ticket and investing part of his time in complementary activities (giving talks and seminars or participating as an analyst in broadcasts of the ESPN signal),

.

This Tuesday he will do it against an adversary who is 38 years old and has a record of 18 wins (15 before the limit) and 2 losses, who has not registered relevant victories in his service record and who, like his occasional rival, also went through a long hiatus in his career.

The two missteps in Tehran occurred on Argentine soil

.

In August 2014 in San Fernando del Valle de Catamarca, the local Miguel Barrionuevo pulverized him in less than three minutes of activity, in a fight framed in the welterweight category.

After that, the San Onofre-born boxer remained inactive for almost seven years, before returning in June 2021 and chaining three wins.

But in September of last year, in his last performance and already installed in the middleweight division, he fell by technical knockout in the fifth round against Juan Manuel Taborda from Cordoba in Villa María.

Reviewing the Colombian's background,

, although for a 48-year-old man any fight hides a latent risk, beyond the qualities of his opponent.

The former world champion warned more than once that he was "one defeat away from retirement."

This Tuesday he will ensure that this goodbye does not happen at Luna Park.

At least for now.

Brian Arregui, for the recovery

"If he continues to do things like this, we have a future world champion there, but he needs logical time," Sergio Martínez told Clarín in February 2022. He was talking about Brian Arregui, one of the great promises of Argentine boxing, who in One of the complementary fights of the evening will face Matías Galucci from Santa Fe looking to leave behind the very controversial defeat he suffered in his last presentation.

Olympic champion at the Buenos Aires 2018 Youth Games, representative of the national team in Tokyo 2020 (he lost in the first round to the American Delante Johnson with a scandalous failure) and current super welterweight youth world champion of the World Boxing Organization, the man from Entre Ríos He linked seven victories (four on the fast track) since his rented debut in December 2020. That streak was cut off on December 9 of last year in a duel with an unexpected ending.

That night at the Payne Arena in Hidalgo (Texas), the boxer born in Villaguay 23 years ago was disqualified in a fight against Eduardo Reyes that the Mexican was in charge of dirtying as much as he could.

After deducting two points in the second episode for a low blow that only he saw, referee Humberto Zavala, in a wrong decision, took the Argentine out of the fight due to an impact that hit Reyes' neck because the American had practically standing with his back to his rival.

Now Arregui will try to put that very bitter pill behind him when he faces Galucci, 29, who has a record of 8 wins (4 by knockout) and 2 losses, and who failed last year in his attempt to obtain the South American super welterweight belt. when he was knocked out in the third chapter by Adrián Sasso from Cordoba.

In addition to the presentations of Martínez and Arregui, the undefeated Laureano Sciuto from San Pedro, who won his 11 bouts (7 before the agreed distance), will face Héctor Sosa (14-2) from Junín in the featherweight category, while the Buenos Aires super flyweight Sebastián Castillo Cuban Damián Arce, a member of the Domadores (his country's national team) and bronze medalist at the Pan American Games in Lima 2019, will be the opponent before whom the Cuban Damián Arce will debut as a professional.

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