Charles Martin (IBF Heavyweight "champion") is the worst titleholder I've ever seen

[Andrew Kearney]

First of all, Charles Martin is not a real champion. I mean, Tyson Fury is the real IBF champ, but he was stripped for some sort of bizarre reasons. So the title becomes a "paper title" from here on and vacant.

But forgetting that for a second, in over 15 years of watching professional boxing, I'd say Charles Martin is the worst titleholder I've ever seen. I mean, I don't mean to rain on his parade. But his technique is horrible, he's extremely slow, doesn't seem to hit very hard. I mean, it just seems like he has nothing going for him.

Dwyer70905, a youtube user who does gambling advice on boxing, has also stated this.
Have a look: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gY3YN9MwdVE

It is true that its nice to have a change in the heavyweight division. Klitschko was the unquestionable top guy for about 10 years. It is cool to have new blood and some new guys in the division, but Charles Martin just looks horrible. I think Lennox Lewis, right now, if he came out of retirement would KO Martin easily. Same for Vitali. Heck, I bet even Mike Tyson could come out of retirement right now and flatten Charles Martin. Maybe even Chris Byrd could come out of retirement and beat Martin.

Do you agree that he is the worst titlist you've ever seen?

Tyson Fury would TKO Martin early.
Haye would KO him early, I'm thinking round 1.
Povetkin takes Martin out in 1 round.
Even Mike Perez, who Povetkin KO'd, would KO Martin early.
Antonio Tarver probably beats him on points or late round TKO.
Possibly some amateur boxers also beat him on points.
Tommy Morrison's son, who has 0 amateur experience would also possibly beat Charles Martin.

Like is this for real?

Maybe they could set up a "Heavyweight Championship" match between Charles Martin and Mark De Mori. I'd give De Mori a good shot at possibly winning. This is how low the heavyweight title has fallen.

I remember when John Ruiz was a champ, people thought that was bad, well Charles Martin is even a few levels down from that!

[Freedom2013]

Maybe the most unproven, but probably not the worst. We'll know more after his next few fights.

I hope he takes on a decent top 15 HW next time out, but I think Haymon will protect him.

[man]

i thought john ruiz was quite something ...

[funso banjo baby]

Tyson Fury is the heavyweight champ.

all the other pretend title holders can be as crap as they want.

its irrelevant

why would you think a champion of a crap bogus title need be good?

[computerrank]

Charles Martin defeated Boxrec's #6 - so not too bad ... I saw worse things ... more than an average achievement for a major title holder ...

[crusader]

Charles Martin defeated Boxrec's #6 - so not too bad ... I saw worse things ... more than an average achievement for a major title holder ...

I think the lack of respect for his win relates to how he won and the common perception that Glazkov already deserved losses on his record (which of course BoxRec rankings don't account for). It's not too impressive to beat a guy like Glazkov on injury in the third when there was pretty much nothing in the first two.

Martin is relatively unproven for a major titlist and devalued ABC trinket aside he's probably someone who should fighting C+ level guys like Mansour at this point. That said, I think he's a solid fighter and given his lack of experience I suspect that he has more room for growth than the typical beltholder. I'd like to see him face some more top 15-20 types--where I think Glazkov realistically falls despite often being higher in result-based rankings--before stepping up to elite opposition, and I hope that he's not opportunistically selected as an opponent for Deontay if the latter doesn't fight Povetkin next.

[Undefeated49-0]

I personally do not find him all that bad, sure he has a few wrinkles to remove but fundamentally he is better than Wilder and has shown he has really good power, for someone to say such things about him they obviously have not seen much of him and are basing their opinion on this last fight.

Mark my words, he will prove to be a lot better than many are giving him credit for.

[Lackeos]

A guy who was #42 in the world defeats by random knee injury a guy who should've been #25 or #30 in the world if not for multiple crooked decisions. It is pretty much the weakest heaviest titlist we've had in a pretty long time.

[sucracristo]

back in the early 80's, when you really only had the wbc and wba, you had a string
of wba champs: michael dokes, gerrie coetzee, greg page, tony tubbs, tim witherspoon,
bonecrusher smith. i would say witherspoon was best of that lot, skills-wise.
wbc had trevor berbick, oliver mcall, hassim rahman, samuel peter, and stiverne
holding their title. wbo has had garbage titlists in every weight class over the years.
martin looked decent to me against glazkov, like he was going to win the fight if glazkov
didn't twist his ankle, but i didn't look at that as a legit title fight that either of them really
earned. it looked like the ibf was trying to hand glazkov a title and their plans fell apart.
serves them right. how many losses does martin have again? how many of his wins by
ko? i judge people by their work product. go to any champion in any sport and go back
through all their matches leading up to their title and you will see some ugly wins.
until you look at the scoreboard and see a loss, this is just peanut gallery talk.

[caldo2025]

I was negative about Martin getting this title shot out of nowhere before the fight but after seeing him in the ring for a few rounds against a quality heavyweight before the injury, he looked ok to me. He looked a lot better than Fury did, imo. Another big guy with a long reach that is going to learn on the job, that's all he is. I actually liked his post fight interview too when he was mad about winning the fight in that fashion. The guy wanted to fight 12 rounds that night and seemed more upset about the short stoppage than happy about winning the title. That's the exact reaction you want a guy to have in a situation like that. I'd like to see more before ever taking a stance that has him the worst champion ever. I've seen some pretty bad titleholders.

[Undefeated49-0]

I was negative about Martin getting this title shot out of nowhere before the fight but after seeing him in the ring for a few rounds against a quality heavyweight before the injury, he looked ok to me. He looked a lot better than Fury did, imo. Another big guy with a long reach that is going to learn on the job, that's all he is. I actually liked his post fight interview too when he was mad about winning the fight in that fashion. The guy wanted to fight 12 rounds that night and seemed more upset about the short stoppage than happy about winning the title. That's the exact reaction you want a guy to have in a situation like that. I'd like to see more before ever taking a stance that has him the worst champion ever. I've seen some pretty bad titleholders.

Those are curse words around here, how dare you say that he looked better than the Fury that beat King Wlad?? lol

[greg]

...never heard of him prior to Glazkov fight...

[caldo2025]

I was negative about Martin getting this title shot out of nowhere before the fight but after seeing him in the ring for a few rounds against a quality heavyweight before the injury, he looked ok to me. He looked a lot better than Fury did, imo. Another big guy with a long reach that is going to learn on the job, that's all he is. I actually liked his post fight interview too when he was mad about winning the fight in that fashion. The guy wanted to fight 12 rounds that night and seemed more upset about the short stoppage than happy about winning the title. That's the exact reaction you want a guy to have in a situation like that. I'd like to see more before ever taking a stance that has him the worst champion ever. I've seen some pretty bad titleholders.

Those are curse words around here, how dare you say that he looked better than the Fury that beat King Wlad?? lol

Oh you mean the fight where those 2 stiff goons combined to average 50 punches a round with a 23% land rate? You mean that epic battle in heavyweight history? That one? I may have been out of line to take that view.

[Undefeated49-0]

Oh you mean the fight where those 2 stiff goons combined to average 50 punches a round with a 23% land rate? You mean that epic battle in heavyweight history? That one? I may have been out of line to take that view.

Yeah that fight!!

If you didn't pick it up, I'm actually in agreement with you for once.

[Lennox]

I think he is the worst ever. Never beat a top 50 fighter to get a world title shot and then won on another fighter forced to retire having a injury whilst throwing a punch.

Should be treated like a No Contest for the purpose of evaluation. The fight proved nothing.

[Tony1244]

I was negative about Martin getting this title shot out of nowhere before the fight but after seeing him in the ring for a few rounds against a quality heavyweight before the injury, he looked ok to me. He looked a lot better than Fury did, imo. Another big guy with a long reach that is going to learn on the job, that's all he is. I actually liked his post fight interview too when he was mad about winning the fight in that fashion. The guy wanted to fight 12 rounds that night and seemed more upset about the short stoppage than happy about winning the title. That's the exact reaction you want a guy to have in a situation like that. I'd like to see more before ever taking a stance that has him the worst champion ever. I've seen some pretty bad titleholders.

Those are curse words around here, how dare you say that he looked better than the Fury that beat King Wlad?? lol

Oh you mean the fight where those 2 stiff goons combined to average 50 punches a round with a 23% land rate? You mean that epic battle in heavyweight history? That one? I may have been out of line to take that view.

Yes it was a boring fight. But it had intrigue, because, unlike, say, May-Berto, we didn't know it would be boring.

Other divisions have boring fights too. Perhaps Fury-Wlad 2 will be much better., We all hope.

[scallum2015]

He actually can fight. Like to see him vs Top Competition.

[Taki...]

The problem is with the nonsense ABC rankings. NO-ONE whose last 3 opponents were Sandez, Dallas and Love should be ranked in any top 10, let alone be getting a title shot.
I'm entirely convinced rankings are outright purchased by some promoters.

[caldo2025]

Oh you mean the fight where those 2 stiff goons combined to average 50 punches a round with a 23% land rate? You mean that epic battle in heavyweight history? That one? I may have been out of line to take that view.

Yeah that fight!!

If you didn't pick it up, I'm actually in agreement with you for once.

hahah,,,yes, 49. I picked that up. Did you hit your head or something? Feeling ok?

[Undefeated49-0]

Oh you mean the fight where those 2 stiff goons combined to average 50 punches a round with a 23% land rate? You mean that epic battle in heavyweight history? That one? I may have been out of line to take that view.

Yeah that fight!!

If you didn't pick it up, I'm actually in agreement with you for once.

hahah,,,yes, 49. I picked that up. Did you hit your head or something? Feeling ok?

haha, must have if I'm agreeing with you, lol
Peace

[asdfjkl]

Before anything, I can't blame Charles Martin for this, he did what he was supposed to do, I blame IBF way more as anyone else.
The only thing I hope is that he's going to fight someone that he really thinks is the best out there that doesn't actually have a real belt atm I would really hate it to see him fighting the worst possible guy, hoping to keep the belt for himself for a little longer.

I think he should fight Anthony Joshua, this way all others with a belt can't avoid Anthony any more if they really want to unify all the belts.

If he fights Wilder right now I would be very disappointed.

[Tony1244]

Before anything, I can't blame Charles Martin for this, he did what he was supposed to do, I blame IBF way more as anyone else.
The only thing I hope is that he's going to fight someone that he really thinks is the best out there that doesn't actually have a real belt atm I would really hate it to see him fighting the worst possible guy, hoping to keep the belt for himself for a little longer.

I think he should fight Anthony Joshua, this way all others with a belt can't avoid Anthony any more if they really want to unify all the belts.

If he fights Wilder right now I would be very disappointed.

I could never be disappointed that 2 top 10 undefeated Heavyweights fight each other. The one caveat is Povetkin.

I'd like Wilder - Povetkin to happen. If Wilder wins, it will shut a lot of people up. If Povetkin wins, it will shut me up and Wilder will join a long list of HW names who have disappointed me.

Did I hear someone ask for a partial list? LOL. Bobick, Leon Spinks, Cooney, Grant, Morrison (to a degree), ...

[Horse]

I think he should fight Anthony Joshua, this way all others with a belt can't avoid Anthony any more if they really want to unify all the belts.

No one is avoiding Joshua.

[SaadOffTheDeck]

Why would anyone avoid Joshua? He's huge money. Martin didn't look terrible. He obviously is in glazkov's class.

[wrighty]

I think Martin is unproven. If I was David hate, that is the champion I'd be angling for .