Sergio Martinez on Fighting Mayweather or Pacquiao: "If I Quit Tomorrow, People Would Forget About Me"

Middleweight world champion Sergio Martinez may come off as a dreamer when he talks about fighting Floyd Mayweather Jr or Manny Pacquiao, smaller men who operate two weight classes beneath him. But in a Reuters interview, he sounded a lot more like a realist: For Sergio, the fight would be about money, yes, but also about legacy and being remembered in the sport of boxing:

"To be considered the best pound for pound I just need this little push, a great fight with one of the two.

"I feel as if I have achieved nothing yet in boxing. Nothing. If I quit tomorrow people would forget about me. I would even forget about myself."

Martinez (48-2-2, 27 KO) also says that Pacquiao's camp have now backed off of agreeing on a 150-pound catchweight, which in the past Bob Arum said he may be open to, after Martinez replied with a willingness to do just that. Now, Martinez says, Pacquiao's team wants him to weigh in at 147, and he cannot weigh more than 150 on fight night.

In other words, they don't want to fight Sergio Martinez. Period.

[ Related: Sergio Martinez Likely to Face Matthew Macklin, March 17 ]

Does Mayweather? It's hard to say. Floyd stays quiet for the most part on these matters, and doesn't himself make the big statements. Floyd has an open date on May 5, and while Martinez is all but penciled in to face Matthew Macklin on March 17, everyone knows that if Mayweather rang him up, the Macklin fight would be off.