Hauser Thomas - Straight writes and jabs: an inside look at another year in boxing

In recent years, Sergio Martinez has become a writers fighter.

Sergio Martinez sat on a folding cushioned-metal chair, eating cashew nuts and sipping from a bottle of water. In two hours, he would enter a boxing ring to defend the middleweight championship of the world. Now, in a dressing room above The Theater at Madison Square Garden, he was engaged in quiet conversation.

Trainer Pablo Sarmiento, cornerman Russ Anber, cutman Dr. Roger Anderson, camp coordinator Marcello Crudelle, and manager Sampson Lewkowicz were with him.

The mood in Martinezs dressing room is constant from fight to fight. Organized, professional, relaxed until the final minutes of preparation when it changes to intense concentration.

Sergio held out his bag of cashew nuts to the others in the room. Anber took a handful.

Latin rap sounded in the background; the music of Rene Perez Joglar, who lives in Argentina and is friends with Martinez. Later, the sound would change to Calle 13, Sergios favorite group.

At 9:30, Dr Anderson put cotton plugs soaked in adrenaline in Martinezs nostrils to constrict the blood vessels. Sergios nose had been broken and bled profusely in his most recent fight. This was a precautionary measure. Five minutes later, Anderson removed the plugs.

Sergios hands were wrapped. He gloved up, stretched, shadow-boxed, and hit the pads with Sarmiento.

New York State Athletic Commission inspectors Ernie Morales and Sue Etkin looked on.

Martinez is an athlete. He was about to engage in a high-stakes athletic competition. The difference between winning and losing could equate to millions of dollars in future earnings. The punishment he absorbed in the ensuing hours might damage him for life.

Yet one had the sense that, as a child growing up in Argentina, Martinez faced challenges on the streets that were as formidable as this one every day. Boxing enabled him to escape from a world of deprivation. Its a timeless tale with few happy endings.

I rule my life by pleasure and necessity, Martinez said five years ago. The pleasure of giving my life another life; the necessity of giving another life to my family.

And now...

Martinez is one boxing story every aficionado should feel a sense of ownership about, Bart Barry has written. He is not running for office in the Philippines. He does not have charges pending against him in Nevada. Martinez makes a match with a larger man every time he defends his belts. He gets hit plenty and finishes each defense with a knockout. If there is a downside to having as boxings middleweight champion of the world a Latino who both looks and fights better than Oscar De La Hoya, it doesnt spring to mind.

Martinez has struggled and fought honorably for what he has achieved in his life. The same cant be said of the people who run boxings world sanctioning organizations and demean the sport with their sale of tarnished indulgences.

On April 17, 2010, Martinez won a unanimous 12-round decision over Kelly Pavlik to claim the WBC, WBO, and linear middleweight crowns. The WBO soon stripped him of his belt on a technical ruling that appeared motivated by the desire to collect a quick sanctioning fee for a championship fight between Danny Jacobs and Dmitry Pirog. But that was of secondary concern to Martinez. His focus was on the WBC title, which had special meaning to him because it was once held by the great Argentinean middleweight, Carlos Monzon.

Martinez was loyal to the WBC, and the WBC betrayed him.

After Sergio defended his title with a dramatic one-punch knockout of Paul Williams on November 20, 2010, the WBC orchestrated a slight of hand that saw him relieved of his title and given the right to fight for an overpriced diamond belt. That cleared the way for Julio Cesar Chavez Jr (a favorite of WBC president Jose Sulaiman) to fight Sebastian Zbik on June 4, 2011, for what was euphemistically called the WBC middleweight championship of the world.

Martinez wanted his title back. After Chavez beat Zbik, the WBC promised Sergio that, if Julio were allowed to fight an interim defense against Peter Manfredo Jr, the organization would order Chavez to fight Martinez next. On November 19, 2011, Chavez beat Manfredo. Even then, Martinez vs. Chavez remained a pipe dream.

Meanwhile, Sulaiman further angered Sergio with an ugly comment about the treatment of women. After Floyd Mayweather Jr (who pays substantial sanctioning fees to the WBC) was sentenced to ninety days imprisonment as a consequence of being found criminally guilty of beating up a woman for the third time, Sulaiman said that Mayweather should not be stripped of his WBC title.

Beating a lady is highly critical, Sulaiman decreed. [But] it is not a major sin or crime.

Martinez is a vocal advocate for the protection of battered women. On December 29, 2011, he declared, Just a few days ago, Don Jose made some controversial statements in reference to Floyd Mayweathers sentence for domestic violence. I know that he sent an apology, but I have the right to ask from Don Jose a public apology about the insensitive comments that he has said about the violence against women.