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Spanish veteran and former world champion Kiko Martinez has been advised to retire after the loss to Josh Warrington this past weekend. Martinez, 36, a genuine overachiever, can look back on a long tough career that began in 2004.
Apparently, Team Martinez won’t bother with making an official protest despite the numerous more or less accidental head clashes that pretty much determined the outcome. The BBBoC and the IBF should, despite that, both take a long hard look at the fight and how it was handled by the referee.
There is also a need for some boxing writers to watch the fights with the glasses on as many seem to have missed what happened.
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Another one who is facing retirement is former world champ Felix Sturm, who suffered an upset loss to Istvan Szili in Dortmund March 26.
BILD writes that Sturm could not only be facing retirement but also more jail time for tax evasion. Sturm has served eight months of a sentence for two years and four months. The case is under appeal though.
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Danish bridgerweight Kem Ljungqvist, a tall southpaw, spent the week in the UK sparring with ex-champ Anthony Joshua, writes knock-out.dk.
Kem (10-0) had previously sparred with Tyson Fury, when he prepared for the fight against Otto Wallin.
Ljungqvist spent this season as an amateur but will return to the pros April 14.
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This past week the Nordic Championship for amateurs went ahead in Iceland. Norwegian super heavyweight Omar Shiha was an upset winner beating the above mentioned Kem Ljungqvist to win Gold, Shiha was then all set to make his pro debut April 1 in Oslo. However, he was then nominated to represent Norway in the European championships and as the Norwegian Federation don’t allow pros and his debut has been called off.
However, Shiha and his opponent, Swedish-Tanzanian Awadh Tamim will still go through with an exhibition.
The main event on the show billed as This Is Boxing is on though and features an exciting clash for the Baltic Boxing Union title between cruiserweights Simen Nysaether (10-0) and Samo Jangirov (7-3).