When you think of Argentine athletes, futbol greats like Diego “10” Maradona and Lionel Messi, often come to mind – boxers don’t. Well, southpaw Sergio “Maravilla” Martinez is poised to change that as Sergio Martineza is poised to becoming this century’s first porteño powerhouse.
In a steady but quiet rise to prominence, the 37-year-old middleweight has won a total of 10 major, minor and regional titles in the last 15 years. Martinez is so skilled he’s ranked one of the three best pound-for-pound boxers in the world, with only Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao ranked ahead of him. Hunger, humility and circumstance made Sergio into a natural fighter. If Martinez’s life had been easier, you might not even know his name.
Raised in Quilmes, a poor town on the outskirts of Buenos Aires, Sergio quit school at 13 to help his family and worked with his father in construction. As a teen, he fell in love with soccer and cycling, but athletics was an outlet, not a profession. Then at 20-years-old, he entered a boxing ring for the first time and it changed his life forever. “The second day at the gym, I knew I would become a boxer,” he said during HBO’s fight preview series 24/7. “I realized I could do great things in boxing.”
In 1995, Martinez began an amateur career that resulted in 39-2 winning record. Despite having gold medals on the brain, he opted out of Olympic training to go professional. A broken left hand sidelined him for a year but he returned to the ring and turned pro in December of 1997. Amassing victories, Maravilla’s 16 wins gained him a shot at his first American fight against Antonio Margarito in 2000 in Las Vegas. It proved to be a misstep and resulted in his first loss. He returned to Argentina where he returned to winning matches. In 2002, the country’s economic crash pushed him to venture to Spain in search of better opportunity. Undocumented, Martinez worked in gyms, washing dishes, construction and even modeled to stay afloat all while continuing to pursue his in-ring dreams. The move would prove fortuitous; in Spain Martinez met his fellow countryman and future trainer Gabriel Sarmiento.
Europe proved to be a fertile battleground for the 5’10” brawler as he began facing better opponents and had bigger matches. During his five years in Spain, Martinez won several belts and earned a return to the U.S. where he won a match against Mexican Saul Roman. Signing with a new promoter in 2007, Martinez left Spain and obscurity for bigger fights and notoriety amongst American boxing fans. The last five years he has faced world champions including Kermit Cintron, Kelly Pavlik and Paul Williams in matches that were all considered “fights of the year.”
With a 49-2-2 pro record (28 of those wins by way of knockout) Martinez is facing the biggest fight of his life against Julio César Chávez Jr. on Saturday September 15th in Las Vegas, Nevada. This fight represents more than a big payday, prestige or even a title. It has been Martinez’s goal since the first time he got into a ring. “Everything I did was to get to now,” Martinez recently said in a Los Angeles Times article. “I don’t look at it as hard. Boxing is not hard to me. Life is hard.”
Well, if Martinez emerges with a victory over Chávez Jr. something tells us life is about to get a lot easier.
If you liked this article. Check this one out: The Greatest Athletes to Come Out of Argentina