By Cliff Rold

It certainly wasn’t the worst of times.  It fell short of the best, but how could it not.  For both of the major boxing stars on display Saturday night, the highs of their careers have been, well, really high.

As has been the case for Martinez since exploding on the U.S. scene in 2008, and as has been the case for Miguel Cotto for years now, fans in the stands and at home got more than their money’s worth.  They got their time’s worth. 

It’s an element not often thought about in sports fandom.  Blowing money on a bad game, fight, or race stinks, but in the end it is just money.  The thing that really stings is what can’t ever be retrieved: time. 

Time spent wondering about outcomes.

Time spent discussing possibilities.

Times spent in the sheer joy of anticipation.

Fights or fighters who make the viewer feel as if they have wasted their time are hard to forgive.  Martinez and Cotto, reliably, don’t do that. 

Martinez (47-2-2, 26 KO), the World Middleweight Champion, made every second count in an eight round dismantling of previously undefeated WBO Jr. Middleweight beltholder Sergiy Dzinziruk (37-1, 23 KO).
 
Cotto (36-2, 29 KO), making the first defense of his WBA Jr. Middleweight belt, was just the right combination of stoic, lethal, and vulnerable, to be involved in a better fight than it had any right being before stopping former lineal World Welterweight Champion Ricardo Mayorga (29-8-1, 23 KO). 

The final bells have sounded.  The grades are in.  Every fan whose investment of time in looking forward to Saturday’s two main events was rewarded can now ask the big question.

What next?

First, let’s go to the report cards.

Grades

Pre-Fight: Speed – Cotto B; Mayorga B/Post: Same
Pre-Fight: Power – Cotto B+; Mayorga B/Post: Same

Pre-Fight: Defense – Cotto B-; Mayorga D/Post: Same

Pre-Fight: Intangibles – Cotto A; Mayorga B/Post: Same

Pre-Fight: Speed – Martinez A; Dzinziruk B+/Post: Same
Pre-Fight: Power – Martinez B+; Dzinziruk B/Post: A; B
Pre-Fight: Defense – Martinez B+; Dzinziruk B+/Post: B+; B-
Pre-Fight: Intangibles – Martinez A; Dzinziruk B/Post: Same

Starting with the Cotto contest, while time watching Cotto is well spent he could spend more time moving his head.  Mayorga missed a lot on Saturday.  He also landed quite a bit with the right hand.  Mayorga, as a knockout puncher, is more a memory than reality in recent years.  Had he been someone who carries real snap late into a fight, the buzzing Cotto clearly was experiencing in round seven might have been worse. 

Instead, Mayorga was what he always is.  He did what he has usually done against recognized names since late 2003.  He did better than most expected going in, used some crazy gestures and theatrics, and lost.  That’s okay.  Mayorga puts on a good show and makes big names look good while doing it.  If the wildman is truly done (and he announced his retirement in the ring after the fight), fans should appreciate the sheer fun most of his big fights were. 

A career with crowd-pleasing losses to Cotto, Cory Spinks, Oscar De La Hoya, Felix Trinidad, and Shane Mosley, wins over Vernon Forrest, Andrew Lewis, and Fernando Vargas, belts in two divisions, and a short stint as the true Welterweight king…this is what Mayorga got done.  By any standard, that’s a great career even if Mayorga will not be mistaken for a great fighter.

Cotto may not go down as a great fighter either when he’s done.  He won’t be that far off.  At 30, he’s sliding away from his absolute peak but still has some rounds left in him.  Where he spends them is a tough question.  Martinez would love to see Cotto move up to a fourth weight class and make a run at the Middleweight crown.

Anyone who loves Cotto would advise against it.  What was evident all night against Mayorga is how small Cotto is in the modern Jr. Middleweight class.  Martinez would have little trouble given not only an edge in size but also his speed and athleticism.  Mayorga was clearly the larger man and there are other big men with greater skill on the horizon.  Cotto has to be careful enough at 154.

For instance, he might want to take a look at Martinez’s Saturday victim.  Dzinziruk has been good enough, long enough, at 154 lbs. not to be dinged for a bad loss to the best man the next class up.  A fight with Cotto would be a great way for both men to test where they are in class.  Dzinziruk has an edge in height and still possesses an excellent jab.  Cotto is an all around pure fighter. 

Any look would have to come after what appears imminent.  Cotto has two losses.  One is not going to be avenged.  Cotto ain’t beating Manny Pacquiao.  That was his second loss.  The first is within reach to reverse.  Both Cotto and Antonio Margarito have been tough times since their epic 2008 encounter at Welterweight.  Their rivalry, and question marks about loaded mitts, constructs the story with ease.  That is the obvious, and fan friendly, future for Cotto.      

Martinez has no obvious future after another validating win.  The validation is enough for the moment.  To borrow from the sage wisdom of Ric Flair, it’s one thing to beat the man but another to stay the man.  Fans saw Martinez win a World crown.  Now it knows he is truly a champion.  The test of a champ is to see if he can get up for the title defense that isn’t a blockbuster.  Martinez passed with flying colors.  He could still stand to get hit less but he makes up for the small margins of flaws in his game with everything else.

Dzinziruk is a very good fighter.  He’s beaten some good fighters and has a stellar amateur background.  The skill set, low on special effects but high on efficiency, was known going in.  Martinez whipped his ass with a flourish that was, in its own way, as impressive as anything he did versus Kelly Pavlik and Paul Williams while earning all the Fighter of the Year accolades 2010 had to hand out.

Waiting for prominent Welterweight and Jr. Middleweights to come to him, at age 36, could be a futile waste of the calendar.  Moving up to Super Middleweight, at least for now, could be attractive but is also unnecessary.  More than most any other weight class, staying put and just being the champ at Middleweight has always been a solid way to make a living.

Lucky for Martinez, a currently shallow Middleweight class is coming of age.  There is a boatload of young talent that will be available to test him in the next couple years.  Names like Fernando Guerrero, Matt Korobov, and Gennady Golovkin, are going to separate themselves from the pack soon and go from the fringes to real contention. 

Golovkin already has a belt, but it’s just one of the many the WBA seems to hand out.  Don’t hold it against him.  He’s a hell of a fighter

HBO’s Max Kellerman prominently mentioned undefeated action monster James Kirkland, also a fine choice.  If Martinez is there to meet any or all of them, the sport will be in good stead. 

For now, the two best challengers are undefeated WBO titlist Dimitry Pirog and longtime WBA beltholder Felix Sturm.  The fast handed Sturm owes it to himself to try to get the fight before he gets old and realizes how much talent was let go to waste.  There is also Paul Williams.  He says he’s headed back to Welterweight but, at Middleweight, he and Martinez are tied in their rivalry at 1-1.  When the lanky whirlwind gets his game back on track, it’s hard to imagine the two of them don’t do their thing again.  Stranger things have happened than Williams coming back from one of the worst knockout losses in Middleweight history. 

Any of these fights should be enough to keep any fan engaged with the Martinez reign for so long as it lasts.  Staying engaged with Cotto is never a problem.  They are on the short list in boxing of real stars and we wait for their time to come again.

Report Card Picks 2011: 4-1

Ratings Impact

154: Pawel Wolak soars into the top ten while Yuri Foreman makes a big drop.  Closing in on a year of inactivity, with no fight in sight, Sechew Powell exits the top ten.  Despite losing where Miguel Cotto won, Sergiy Dzinziruk retains his top spot for now having reigned longer at Jr. Middleweight and having faced a much higher quality of competition over the weekend.
 
There were no other major moves in the ratings this week but those noted and the critical results from the week are found in the updated ratings.

Cliff Rold is a member of the Ring Magazine Ratings Advisory Panel, the Yahoo Pound for Pound voting panel, and the Boxing Writers Association of America.  He can be reached at roldboxing@hotmail.com