By David "Los Gatos" Rosenberg

Sergio Martinez held a press conference in Argentina to announce that he's vacating the WBC Diamond title. Martinez expresed his anger over the WBC's failure to honor their promise of a mandatory fight with their full middleweight champion, Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. At the recent WBC convention at the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas, the organization ordered Chavez to defend the title against Martinez by the end of March.

To Martinez's surprise, WBC president Jose Sulaiman contacted him, a few days later, to step aside in order to allow Chavez to fight Marco Antonio Rubio on February 4th in Texas. Martinez refused, but the WBC announced that Martinez agreed in a press release. Martinez, who announced his move to vacate the WBC's Diamond title, feels that Sulaiman owes him an apology.

"I'm not planning to defend the WBC Diamond belt anymore. The only title I'm going to defend from now on is the title I won after beating Kelly Pavlik, the Ring Magazine title. I won't ever represent the WBC ever again, until the WBC makes the fight they ordered at the WBC convention [against Chavez]. They won't honor their own agreement. I hate the coward [nature] that Chavez Jr. displays, as well as his coach Freddie Roach, and his promoter Bob Arum, for avoiding me every day. I never thought a world champion could avoid someone in this way," Martinez said.

Martinez returns against Matthew Macklin on March 17th at New York's Madison Square Garden. The fight with Macklin may not appear on HBO, as Martinez had some choice words about the treatment he received from the network and plans to jump ship to rival Showtime.