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On the meeting of Martinez and the Sarmientos
Pablo Sarmiento: "We started working with Sergio when he got to Spain. He was going through a bad time and he called me because he needed help. He needed somebody to show him how things worked in Spain. We brought him back to work with us, and that's how Sergio's career began. We trained very hard for many years to finally get to this moment."
Sergio Martinez: "I am very patient. In my 37 years, one of the things I have learned in my career and with my experiences, is that I have to be patient. And I have acquired it."
Sarmiento: "The Williams fight was a very hard fight. Sergio not only had to demonstrate his boxing skills but had to also demonstrate that he has what it takes to be in the ring with a very good opponent like Paul Williams."
Kevin Iole, Yahoo! Sports: "Paul Williams was one of the top five fighters in the world at that point on virtually all polls. He was a big, tall guy with a huge reach, had quickness. ... When the bell ended, I think the judging was very wrong in that fight. To me, it was anybody's fight, it could have gone either way. I think a split decision was the way to call it."
Lou DiBella: "Martinez got knocked down, flash knockdown in the first round. He ended the first round by almost knocking out Williams, and then giving him a look as he walked back to the corner, saying, 'It's on, man.'"
Sampson Lewkowicz: "I still believe that it was a very close fight, it could have gone either way. If Paul Williams won, it was the Fight of the Year. It showed the quality and the heart of both fighters."
Martinez: "Against Kelly Pavlik, I fought one of my best fights. I had one of my toughest rivals in front of me, and he was the hardest hitter I have ever met in my entire life."
Iole: "Kelly Pavlik had a reputation as just a giant killer. He'd come up and had beaten a lot of great fighters at middleweight, and really had beaten them in special fashion."
DiBella: "Sergio dominated the first four rounds, Kelly came back in the middle rounds, and then Sergio destroyed Kelly Pavlik in the last four rounds of that fight."
Bernardo Osuna, ESPN: "Sergio Martinez cut up Kelly Pavlik unbelievably. Just surgical in his execution."
Martinez: "Williams fights at a very short distance, and throws a lot of punches. And every time he hit me, he left himself exposed. And since he throws so many punches, he left himself open many times. And my left hand was going to catch him, because he was asking for it. It's like a clean stroke in tennis, like a great smash. Like a good shot, when a punch is clean, there is no opposition. And that's what happened. Williams crumbled. It was the most spectacular knockout of my life."
Sarmiento: "My brother changed the strategy, because he was watching video, and at the last moment he realized that Williams had a weakness, that all the other fighters had never tried to attack him with their left hand. And at the last minute, my brother changed the strategy."
Lewkowicz: "The second fight with Paul Williams, it was so funny because on Thursday, the trainer came to me and said, 'You know what? We need to go back to square one. We need to change the plan.' I said, 'How the hell can you do that?'"
Martinez: "They don't see boxing the same way I do. It's like when you chop down a tree. It's going to fall the moment it has to fall. It's not going to fall before that. As much as he may have been winning the fight, Macklin didn't have anything left. I kept hammering away at his foundation, and he came tumbling down."
Osuna: "Sergio Martinez, he's very smart, and what he does is, he plays with his opponents. He lets them get into a sense of confidence, and that's what happened with Matthew Macklin. Macklin had a couple good rounds. In the seventh round, there was a trip that was called a fall for Sergio Martinez. That kind of made Macklin believe he could do it. Next thing you know, he's chopping him up, he's chopping him down, and he's cutting him up. ... When you look at the last couple fighters he's fought, they all end up with their face tore up. It speaks to the angles that he throws punches from, it speaks to his constant mobility, it speaks to the fact that when he lands, he's got power behind those punches. They're like razorblades on those gloves."
Lewkowicz: "Chavez Jr is a bigger fighter. Kelly Pavlik was the bigger fighter. Paul Williams is the taller fighter. And every one of those, he paid the price from Sergio Martinez."
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