Sergio Gabriel Martinez is a professional Argentine boxer. He was born on February 21st of 1975 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He was popularly called with the nickname “Maravillia” which means “Wonder“.
Currently, Martinez is The Ring’s Middleweight champion, with formerly being an undefeated WBC and WBO Champion in the Middleweight division. He is also an owner of a WBC Diamond Belt.
In his previous professional boxing career, he actively participated in Light Middleweight Division and has held the World titles for WBC Latino and Interim WBC Light Middleweight championships.
Martinez is rated as rank number 3 best pound for pound fighter of the world by many of the sports news websites, boxing websites, and likewise Magazines such as The Ring, ESPN, Sports Illustrated, and Yahoo Sports. The Ring Magazine and the BWAA awarded Martinez as the “Fighter of the Year” and “Knockout of the Year” recognitions respectively.
Sergio Martinez was born to Argentine parents Hugo Alberto Martinez and Susana Griselda in Avellaneda which is located in the Buenos Aires Province of Argentina. Before Martinez entered the boxing industry, he actively participated in Cycling and was also a fair football player. It was in year 1995 that Martinez made up his mind to become a boxer. Then he was trained by his uncle Ruben Paniagua before he entered the boxing industry as an amateur. He made a record of 39 wins and 2 losses during his amateur boxing career where his 2 losses where a knockout and unanimous decision. In 1996, Martinez broke his left hand which forced him to set back from his boxing career for about a year. Martinez also had been considering representing Argentina last 2000 Olympics but decided that he was too old to join the 2000 Olympics if he is going to wait for another two and a half year, so he chose to upgrade his boxing career to a professional level.
During the start of his professional boxing career, Martinez made his first professional boxing fight with Cristian Marcelo Vivas. He was then 22, but won his first boxing fight because his opponent got disqualified during the second round. His first 17 fights were all located in his homeland, Argentina and he has compiled a record of 16 wins, 0 losses, and 1 draw.
After having a quite low opponent stat in his homeland, Martinez decided to look for an opponent overseas. He traveled to United States during 2000 and had a bout with Antonio Margarito in Las Vegas. Although Martinez fought fairly back to Margarito after a bad start in the early rounds, Margarito was still handed the as the winner of the fight and thus making it Martinez’s first loss. After his loss in the United States, Martinez returned to Argentina and won 8 fights during a mere time span from April 2000 up to February 2002.
In 2008, Martinez won his fight from Alex Bunema in an 8-round retirement and thus handling him the Interim WBC Light Middleweight title. In 2009, he fought Paul Williams in a non-title Middleweight but lost his fight in a close-score winning bout. He remained in the Middleweight division and challenged the World Champion Kelly Pavlik. They had a bout in April of 2010 from which Martinez won his fight from Pavlik in a unanimous decision. Following his victory from Pavlik, Martinez had another fight on November. It was a rematch with Paul Williams from which he won the fight this time.
