When Carl Jammes “Wonder Boy” Martin scored a knockout victory over Yutthichai Wannawong of Thailand during the second televised fight of his career held last June 9, 2019, his immaculate record raised to 13 wins that includes 12 knockouts.
The promising fighter from Ifugao, who is no stranger to professional combat sports being the cousin of Brave Colmbat Federation Bantamweight Champion Stephen Loman, needed only one round to finish his opponent.
Aside from the impressive win streak, it also extended Martin’s kayoe streak to nine, winning over a foreigner foe to seven, and stopping an opponent in the first half of the fight to three.
In fact, Martin has stopped all but one of his opponents in abbreviated fashion. The only time he failed to floor an opponent was when Jason Buenaobra lasted eight rounds in his fourth professional fight. Martin still won this fight convincingly by unanimous decision.
The unbeaten Martin is ranked 11th among bantamweights by the World Boxing Association (WBA). He currently holds the WBA Bantamweight and the World Boxing Organization (WBO) Oriental Youth Bantamweight titles.
These set of accomplishments had many boxing enthusiasts view Martin to be the second coming of Manny Pacquiao.
While Martin was quick to defuse the notion by saying he wanted not to pattern his game to the Fighting Senator, he acknowledged his training led him to the fighting same style.
“I’ve been told that I fight like him but I know there’s only one Manny Pacquiao so I wanted to change my fight style, but when I train and when I fight, I keep going back to that style so I think I’ll just have to accept it.”” Martin said in an interview with ESPN-5.
Martin, however, may not be a bad Pacquiao impersonator if he continues this impressive showing in future bouts.
For the record, Martin possess a handful of Pacquiao traits that make many Filipinos compare the young Igorot phenom to the famed boxer. Aside from the fighting style, Martin, like Pacquiao, is also an aggressive southpaw fighter who has developing good footwork and quick hand speed.
His also being a knockout specialist, coachable, humble, turning professional at an early age of 16 and concerned about giving the fans a good show are more than enough reasons to entice the boxing community to conclude that this 20-year old rising Cordilleran star is indeed an replica replacement of Pacquiao once he decides to hang his gloves.
Here are some interesting numbers when we compare Pacquiao and Martin after their 13th career fight:
Manny Pacquiao | Carl Jammes Martin | |
Performance after first 13 professional bouts | ||
12-1 | record | 13-0 |
5 | knockouts | 12 |
41.67% | knockout rate | 92.31% |
0 | Split-decisions | 0 |
0 | titles held | 5 |
66 | Total rounds | 45 |
0 | foreigner foes | 7 |
win-loss-draw 87-23-24 |
Combined record of opponents before fight |
win-loss-draw 98-74-14 |
Personal Attributes | ||
5’6″ | Height | 5’6″ |
16 | Age turned pro | 16 |
southpaw | fighting stance | southpaw |
aggressive | fighting style | aggressive |
Superflyweight | Fighting weight at 13th bout | Bantamweight |
not evident yet | Handspeed | manifested |
manifested | lefthand power | manifested |
not developed | righthand power | manifested |
not evident yet | defense | manifested |
Martin, who is said to grow up idolizing Pacquiao, Z Gorres and Gerry Penalosa, does look better than Pacman did at the same stage in their career.
Martin has a better record, better knockout ratio, has beaten more experienced fighters, more than half of them foreigners, and is perceived to be a much complete boxer than Pacquiao at the same stage in their respective careers.
He also grabbed some hardware along the way. Aside from WBA bantamweight and WBO Oriental Youth Bantamweight titles, Martin also won at one point of his career the interim World Boxing Council Asian Boxing Council Continental Bantamweight Title, interim Philippines Boxing Federation (PBF) Bantamweight Title, and Philippines Luzon Professional Boxing Association (LuzProBA) Bantamweight titles
Pacquiao was a raw fighter coming up but with lots of potential as a world champion when he was young. It took a partnership with Freddie Roach to bring out the best in him.
While these data doesn’t necessarily put Martin on the same booth and career path as Pacquiao, being with the right coach, be it a local or foreigner, that would extract the best of him and winning a few more quality fights that will promoted properly should be able to launch the Ifugao “Wonder Boy” to boxing stardom and some big paydays.
By Armando M. Bolislis, with the career fight records and bout results of both fighters from boxrec.com