why does hbo pretend that Martinez has fought the best middleweights????

For the same reason they pretend Pacquaio beat Marquez.I rate Martinez but this thread has reminded me that the division is **** poor compared to days gone by.

 

Imagine what Pirog would have done to Williams.

 

He has the opportunity to fight Macklin in MSG on March 17th and he should take this fight instead of chasing fights against WW's that are never going to happen

 

:bbb

Yeah. Would have picked him apart basically, but maybe couldn't have landed a perfect shot like the left Martinez landed on PWill.

That said, I think Pirog's style is harder to work against than Martinez's.

 

you keep sucking on martinez balls but what about pirog, and sturm who the **** are they fighting that are so good...

:hat

 

There's no way Martinez would be able to get away with fighting someone like Adama or Ishida. Two of the most qualified challengers on that list are Sturm and Rubio. I'm skeptical Sturm would fight Martinez and Rubio got a shot at Pavlik several years ago and HBO and most of the public wasn't on board with that fight. In fairness I've always thought Rubio was a solid pro and Pavlik should have gotten a bit more credit for that win but, overall, most aren't blown away by him.

There are a number of solid middleweights who would be pretty qualified challengers but most are about one nice win away. Guys like Lee, Pirog, Golovkin, Quillen, Geale, Proska, etc should look to face each other to get a shot at Martinez. It seems like Martinez may face Macklin in March and I'm sure HBO would be willing to put almost any two of those guys against each other on the undercard to set up a future fight with Martinez.

Martinez has had a very nice run at 160 but most of that comes from when he beat Pavlik for the title and then Williams, who was, justifiably, a highly rated middleweight. His last two defenses have been good but a decline from Pavlik and Williams. If he keeps beating guys like Dzinziruk and Barker he'll have a nice but unspetacular reign as champ. Martinez needs a guy or two like Pirog, Lemieux, Quillen, etc to break through and be seen as a serious challenge. I'd say, overall, Martinez has had a nice run but his current pace is going slowly in the wrong direction from where he was.