LAS VEGAS – To step up from fighting inside a worn convention center to an NFL stadium is not a routine career trajectory, but Lester Martinez feels fully prepared to bask in the glow of boxing’s hottest lights Saturday night.
A stablemate of main-event fighter Terence Crawford, Guatemala’s Martinez, 19-0 (16 KOs), secured a shot at WBC super-middleweight interim champion Christian Mbilli, 29-0 (24 KOs), on the Netflix-streamed undercard of Crawford’s undisputed super-middleweight challenge of champion Canelo Alvarez at Allegiant Stadium.
“I feel calm,” Martinez told BoxingScene this week. “I’ve always wanted to be part of a Terence Crawford fight. It’s a goal of my life that will now be realized. Maybe not as many, but I’ve felt bright lights before. I’ll be focused for this fight.”
Coming off a March victory at the Orange Show Events Center in San Bernardino, California, Martinez, 29, has functioned as an inspired, destructive performer, riding a wave of six knockouts/stoppages over his past seven fights to rise to No. 3 among WBA 168lbs fighters, No. 7 in the WBC and No. 15 in the WBO.
He was only paused in July, when a return bout with what he originally believed were migraine headaches forced him to withdraw from his ProBoxTV main event versus Pierre Hubert Dibombe at Fresno’s Save Mart Arena.
“It was a pinched [Arnold] nerve – the nerve runs from the top of your neck base of your skull over the top of your head to the eye,” ProBoxTV CEO Garry Jonas explained.
Martinez proceeded through treatments including nerve stimulation and rest followed by physical therapy during training camp in Colorado Springs, Colorado, where Martinez sparred with Crawford.
The neck and upper back tightness alleviated, stopping the previously undiagnosed discomfort, and freeing the fan favorite to resume his career path.
“That [pain] is all in the past. I got the work done on it, and it’s all fixed – to the point I don’t even think about it anymore,” Martinez said. “My chances of winning this fight are good because of the preparation I’ve put in and the fact I know this is my opportunity.”
Trained by Crawford’s cornerman, Brian “BoMac” McIntyre, Martinez meets an opponent in the Cameroon-born Canadian Mbilli who has disposed of two 168lbs gatekeepers in recent bouts, defeating former middleweight title challenger Sergiy Derevyanchenko in August 2024 and Maciej Sulecki by first-round TKO on June 27.
By fighting for ProBoxTV, which prides itself on staging 50-50, demanding fights, Martinez said the high stakes of the lower-profile shows “opened doors for me, teaching me so much and making me more recognized in boxing … it got me this fight.”
The sparring sessions with Crawford complemented Martinez’s typical preparation, as each felt the appreciation of confronting a rigged practice test before the defining fights of their career.
“I was helping Crawford and then I got word that I’d have this fight on the same card and he worked so hard in helping me,” Martinez said. “It became a case of iron sharpening iron.”
How will Crawford fare?
“It is Canelo so it’s an uphill battle, but I believe [Crawford] has very high chances to win,” Martinez said.
Whatever happens in that bout, Martinez will have the opportunity in victory to put himself strongly in line for either a victorious Alvarez or to fight someone else for the belt should Crawford, 37, retire or move back down toward the 154lbs division he’s moved up from.
“After this there will be big things – things will get a lot more big and a lot more complicated,” Martinez said. “I will have that [interim championship] and things will become a lot more interesting for me.”
Martinez said he plans to perform so strongly Saturday that it will lift him past Hamzah Sheeraz as the frontrunner for a shot at the super-middleweight belts.
“Any doubts? Watch the fight Saturday night,” he said. “There will be no doubt left that I’m the guy in the division.”
