By Rey Anthony: Key West, FL, USA – The only televised undercard during the ESPN’s Friday Night Fights between Denis “Momma’s Boy” Douglin (14-1-0 8 KO) and Steve Martinez (11-1-0 9 KO) ended up in a possible robbery with the former winning the scheduled 8 round fight between the two young light middle weights from New York via split decision against the latter.
Puerto Rican born Martinez came in the fight undefeated and according to his camp had the “hardest training camp of his life”. Denis Douglin had his mom Saphya as his trainer during the fight.
The two fighters seemed to be evenly matched in the opening round. They started the fight trading power punches during the first two rounds. Douglin, the southpaw from Marlboro, NJ went down the canvass at 0:32 of the first round that was ruled a slip by the referee.
A quick bizarre incident took place on the third round when the light went down for a couple of seconds but that did not stop the two fighters from trading punches. Martinez threw the shorter and sharper punches while Douglin threw fewer and wider ones.
Both fighters seemed to have lost a grip of their mouth pieces. The fight was delayed at around the 1:30 of the 4th round because Martinez’ mouthpiece had to be washed. Douglin landed a solid right at the end of that round that might have been enough for him to win the round. At around the :28 of the 5th round, the fight had to be stopped again because this time it was Douglin’s mouth piece that came loose off his mouth.
Douglin looked like the aggressor during the 6th round but Martinez’ punches landed more accurately. This is the first time in both boxers’ careers that they fought past the 6th round. Martinez again lost his mouthpiece at 1:37 and the upper part of his nose started bleeding. By the 8th round, the bleeding on his face started to worsen and Douglin, the Brooklyn born fighter started looking in control of the fight. It’s the bleeding on Martinez’ face that might have also swayed the judges decisions.
ESPN took a risk by showing the corner live during break only to regret that decision when Douglin’s mother unleashed the F word while motivating her son. That is what makes HBO and Showtime different from them.
While both fighters landed the same connect percentage at 27%, Martinez looks like the clear winner of the fight. He threw the more accurate punches.
Compubox final stats had Martinez landing 32 out of 236 jabs, 163 out of 479 power punches and 195 out of 715 total punches while Douglin landed 29 out of 178 jabs, 123 out of 377 power punches and 152 out of 555 total punches thrown. Even ESPN ring side announcer Teddy Atlas had Martinez ahead in his scorecards 5 rounds to 3.