Charles Martin Wins IBF Title in a Short Night

It wasn’t exactly the plan Charles Martin had. The first southpaw to hold a portion of the heavyweight title since Michael Moorer was hoping to get in a little work.

Martin (23-0-1, 21 KOs) didn’t technically land a punch to win the vacant IBF heavyweight title when the previously undefeated Vyacheslav Glazkov crumbled to the canvas in the third round, when his right knee buckled. Referee Albert Earl Brown asked the Ukrainian if he was able to continue, and Glazkov (21-1-1, 13 KOs) shook his head ‘no.’

The fight was waved over and Martin was awarded with the TKO at 1:50 of the third round—without really landing a punch. Actually, it was Glazkov that landed the punch, connecting with a body shot before his knee took an interesting twist.

Related » Martin-Glazkov Round-by-Round Scoring

“I still wanted to fight, it was a 12-round fight and we trained for 12 rounds and felt we could get stronger as the 12 rounds went,” Martin said. “Any way I hit him, anywhere I landed, and just the force of it, his legs would fly out in back of him. We didn’t even fight. I want another fight.”

Martin received a spattering of boos as he left—though what happened to Glazkov wasn’t his fault.

Martin didn’t open very aggressively. But in the third, he began picking up his tempo. That seemed to grab Glazkov’s attention. He started backing away after getting a little taste of Martin’s power. Just after the two-minute mark, the two met in the center of the ring and it’s when the mishap occurred.

Joseph Santoliquito is the president of the Boxing Writer's Association of America and a frequent contributor to Sherdog.com's mixed martial arts and boxing coverage. His archive can be found here.