Sergio Gabriel Martinez (50-2-2, 28) proved he was the Middleweight champion of the world as he reclaimed the WBC Middleweight title and thoroughly dominated Julio Cesar Chavez Jr (46-1-1-1, 32) despite a late scare.
The bout started slowly with a clear feeling out round as Martinez boxed on the outside landing jab after jab against Chavez who was stalking and looking to try and cut the distance. Though it was obvious from the early stages that Martinez was the much, much faster fighter with both his hands and feet.
In the the third round Chavez started to have some, though very limited, success as he managed to cut the distance, though it seemed that every time Chavez landed one or two Martinez would land 4 or 5 in return. By now it was becoming clear that Martinez was not only the more skilled of the two fighters but was also wanting to mentally break Chavez and he started to turn the screw over the following few rounds, even beating Chavez on the inside. By the end of the fourth Chavez's nose was bleeding and it was obvious that he was being hurt by the accurate stream of jabs by Martinez.
After Martinez had easily dominated both the 5th and 6th round it seemed as if Chavez was with out a plan. Chavez kept walking forward but threw nothing whilst Martinez danced around him, landing shot after shot. It appeared at the end of round 6 as if Chavez's nose had been broken and whilst he was showing real heart he was starting to take a real beating.
Suddenly in round 8 Chavez had one of his best rounds (which wasn't saying much up to this point) as he tagged Martinez with a solid shot that opened up a cut around the left eye of Martinez. Despite landing the solid punch Chavez was other-wise clearly outboxed as he fell yet further behind on the cards.
Going into round 11, it was a shut out and Freddie Roach, in Chavez's corner, knew his man was needing a knock out. Chavez attempted to go for the KO and seemed to hurt Martinez at one point before Martinez struck back shaking up Chavez in what, appeared at the time to be the round of the fight...then we got round 12.
With everyone knowing Chavez needed a knockout he really went for it and for the first time he really let his hands go, tagging Martinez clean on the chin a number of times before Martinez went down hard. It suddenly appeared as if history was going to repeat it's self and Chavez Jr was going to replicate what his dad did to Meldrick Taylor. Chavez went all out for the KO but failed to land the one extra shot he needed before Martinez recovered his senses and survived the rest of the round.
Whilst some may have been expecting some awful score cards in favour of Chavez, the judges did the right thing and all 3 of them had Martinez as a clear winner.
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