Martinez belongs in the Hall

By Dan Rafael

ESPN.com

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Every single week in my Friday #FightFreak boxing chat I'm asked if so-and-so is a Hall of Famer, and since I've been a voter for more than a decade my opinion actually counts on the subject.

Most recently the question has been about Sergio Martinez, who, with chronic injuries at age 39, is coming off a one-sided 10th-round TKO loss to Miguel Cotto on June 7 that emphatically ended his middleweight championship run and perhaps his career.

I'm here to say yes. I will put my money where my mouth is and vote in the affirmative when he appears on the ballot. His accomplishments merit the selection even though his prime was relatively short -- about six years as an elite, pound-for-pound-caliber fighter and middleweight champion for four years.

He won an junior middleweight belt, but the strength of his candidacy is solely as an undersized middleweight.

Some raw stats: He made six successful title defenses (winning four by knockout and beating four undefeated fighters), fought 10 consecutive tough fights (no easy breathers for "Maravilla" -- an unheard-of stretch in this era), recorded the 2010 knockout of the year and was the 2010 fighter of the year, which amounts to being the boxing MVP.

In those 10 serious fights in a row, starting with a 2009 junior middleweight bout against former welterweight titlist Kermit Cintron, Martinez went 7-2-1. As far as I'm concerned he was 9-1, the loss to Cotto (another future Hall of Famer) being the only legit loss in that stretch.

Martinez wound up with an obscene draw against Cintron, whom he knocked out. The referee counted to 10 and then let the fight continue in one of the most bizarre things I've ever seen. Then the judges badly messed up by declaring it a draw. So he really won that fight twice, by KO and by decision, but I digress.

In his next fight, Martinez, on short notice, faced Paul Williams, regarded by many at the time as the most avoided fighter in boxing. Martinez went all out against him in a strong fight of the year contender and traded knockdowns with him in a fantastic fight, which I thought he won. The judges gave it to Williams by majority decision. From that time on, Martinez was entrenched on the pound-for-pound list for good reason.

Then Martinez claimed THE middleweight title. By the way, he didn't just win some random belt. He won the legitimate, lineal championship by beating Kelly Pavlik in 2010. He was the man, who beat the man, who beat the man.

With the lineal title in hand, Martinez rolled to six defenses, all against quality opponents, even though he was stripped of his two alphabet belts along the way.

He waxed Williams in their rematch by massively violent, one-punch knockout, which clinched 2010 KO and fighter of the year honors. Then came wins against Sergei Dzinziruk, a former junior middleweight titlist who was supposed to be dangerous. Martinez dropped him five times in an eighth-round knockout.

Darren Barker, who later won an alphabet belt, went down by highlight-reel 11th-round knockout. Matthew Macklin, a legit top-5 middleweight at the time they met (and who had been robbed in a previous title bout), also got stopped in the 11th.

Then Martinez made Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. look like an amateur for 11-plus rounds. Other than suffering a 12th-round knockdown, Martinez cruised with ease and reclaimed one of the alphabet trinkets that had been stripped. He suffered a torn ligament in his knee on the knockdown and came back too quickly from surgery to defend against quality contender Martin Murray in an Argentina homecoming fight. Despite being hobbled, and tearing the knee ligament again, Martinez deserved the close decision win he got.

By the time Martinez (51-3-2, 28 KOs) faced Cotto a year later, his legacy was already set.

In my view, the man who is arguably Argentina's greatest fighter -- other than Hall of Famer and fellow former middleweight champ Carlos Monzon -- was already a Hall of Famer in his own right.