Comments Thread For: Roach: Martinez is a Soccer Player, a Secondary Fighter!

[gauze]

Soccer player?

I must be missing something. Does Sergio play semi-pro soccer or something?

he was a professional cyclist before boxing, and he did play soccer but i dont think it was in the paid-ranks

[Evil Abed]

He wishes Cotto was up against a soccer player.

[Bronx2245]

Floyd rematch makes sense. If Cotto wins, that would be a huge money-maker, and Cotto is not tied to TR or HBO, so it would be easier than a Martinez (HBO) matchup with Floyd. Cotto vs. Canelo will be bigger than Pac vs. Bradley, and maybe bigger than Mayweather vs. Maidana too.

[LADIV]

so when sergio beats the *** out of cotto , will roach make a claim that cotto got his as s handed to him by a soccer player.

[ColdBlooded]

Roach is getting ahead of himself. First Cotto has to somehow defeat Martinez, the hardest hitting, best conditioned fighter he has ever faced. He's also one of the fastest.

[MMegatron]

Roach seems to be dumb as ****

[HanzGruber]

ironically cotto will be the one running when they fight

[Noctilux]

http:///Users

[kozone]

Martinez the soccer player should kick (all pun intended) cottos azz!

[rey guey]

if Roach really believes that and doesn't realize what kind of boxer Martinez is than his training is really going to hurt Cotto

this is the best article I've read breaking down what Martinez does in the ring

http://www.thesweetscience.com/news/...sing-maravilla

Martinez is an atypical counterpuncher with a mission statement: Provoke blows to provoke mistakes. "When we want to throw," he says, "that's when we are most exposed." When he leads with a single punch it is no different from when he flinches, feints with his feet, or drops his hands and leans forward. He'll slide in, jerk a shoulder and slide out to draw you out so he can counter (what you think is) your counter attack.

This bluff and blast strategy is general. He insists that "it can be done with all."

He was born three years after the death of the once-famous trainer Jack Hurley and his timing only serves to confuse the truth once again. The truth is Martinez is a Hurley fighter. "You can tell a Hurley fighter from the others as easily as an art expert can tell a Rembrandt from something by Harry Grunt," wrote W.C. Heinz in 1967, they "come out with that shuffle step, the hands low and in punching position, and they just invite you to lead so that can move off it, step in and knock your block off with the counter."

"The average counterpuncher is a guy who don't do a damn thing," Hurley said. "If you throw a punch he ducks it and he hits you quick." Hurley raised the counterpunching game from checkers to chess. Martinez adds his own nuances. Half the time he knows what shot will be thrown because it is precisely what he invited in the first place. The end result is that the shot misses by an inch and he lands a simultaneous counter, reducing his reaction-time to nearly zero. What commentators are hailing as incredible speed has as much to do with planning and timing. What looks like natural power is really a product of a collision between his fist and the incoming face ***8212;what Hurley identified as "the difference between a push punch and a shock punch."

And he has a secret that no one has figured out yet: He kills jabs. The jab is the evolutionary leap that separates boxers from flailing brutes and enables the former to routinely dominate the latter ***8212;literally single-handedly. Martinez invites the jab and then sneaks over a looping right with it. He uses two counters besides. In the second round against Matthew Macklin, he timed Macklin's jab, slipped outside of it, and countered with a straight left that sent him flying into the ropes. Later, Martinez slid to his left off of Macklin's jab and countered it with a left uppercut. He does this so well no one's sure he's doing it, least of all the one it's being done to. He does it again and again, against everybody, and yet they keep right on jabbing, faithfully, to the end.

Martinez's offense is not bait for his counters every time. He's liable to attack the moment he senses an opponent getting set to punch or when the opponent is not expecting it. This is not only disruptive it is disheartening. Like Manny Pacquiao, Joe Calzaghe, and other discordant rhythm fighters, Martinez understands the human tendency to follow predictable patterns (move, set, punch 1, 2 ***8212;repeat.) and he anticipates and exploits that predictability. His is a jazz style with riffs as disorienting to his opponents as Miles Davis was to Percy Faith.

The Maravilla strategy becomes clear. His is the comprehensive counterattack of an athlete. He doesn't simply "duck and counter," he's constantly provoking offense to his advantage and using mobility and discordant rhythm to confuse.