Martinez, Williams may fight third bout

ATLANTIC CITY - No matter how good a show WBC middleweight champion Sergio Martinez and challenger Paul Williams put on last night at Boardwalk Hall in the reprise of their thrilling first bout last Dec. 5, it doesn't mean the winner is ticketed for a major pay-per-view payday. In fact, the better they look, the harder it will be to find a quality opponent.

What that means for Martinez and Williams is that their second bout might not be the end of their personal series. Williams won a controversial majority decision in the first meeting that seemed to demand a rematch, but the major reason they are fighting again is because neither could land a megafight with Manny Pacquiao or Floyd Mayweather Jr.

In fact, that's why Martinez gave up the 154-pound title he held at the same time he won the 160-pound middleweight belt from Kelly Pavlik last April. Pacquiao fought at 154 a week ago Saturday but against a fading Antonio Margarito, who also is controlled by Pacquiao's promoter Bob Arum. Williams still has the ability to get to the 147-pound welterweight limit, but the representatives for Pacquiao and Mayweather won't give him the time of day even at that low weight.

So, before Martinez-Williams II took place, their respective promoters, Lou DiBella and Dan Goossen, were talking about the possibility of another sequel. "It's rare when you have the two best fighters in two weight classes [154 and 160] fighting each other," Goossen said last week. "This is the kind of fight I could see four or five times."

When DiBella was asked if he could foresee this matchup turning into a long-running series, he said, "A rematch is always viable. If somehow, some way Pacquiao or Mayweather became available, the winner of this fight would desperately want that. My guess is, one way or the other, this fight is going to happen again."

Although Martinez agreed to a 158-pound catchweight, his WBC middleweight belt was on the line. But the next highest-best middleweight is German Felix Sturm, who doesn't move the needle in terms of U.S. recognition. Martinez and Williams both easily can make the 154-pound light middleweight limit, but Arum already has said Pacquiao has fought his last opponent at that weight.

The potential 154-pound opponents left include Miguel Cotto, an Arum fighter, Shane Mosley, another Arum fighter rumored to be in line for a welterweight bout with Pacquiao and Alfredo Angulo.

"We had conversations with Angulo, but he's got huge immigration problems," DiBella said. "We would have loved to have fought Cotto, but I don't think that's a fight anyone at Top Rank has any interest in."

Martinez actually spent most of his career fighting in Europe. A native of Argentina, he lived in Spain for several years before moving to the Los Angeles area to seek bigger fights. But many of the world's top middleweights fight in Europe and remain largely unknown to American audiences. The exception would be Pavlik, who was moving up to the 168 super-middleweight division, where there is lots of competition, but his personal demons surfaced recently to derail his comeback from the loss to Martinez.

So, if Martinez and Williams don't keep fighting each other, who else is there? "That's a little scary," Williams said. "Who will step in the ring and fight? Will HBO put it on? I'll fight anybody. But my thing is I'm not going to get in there and take peanuts."