MADRID, 21 Ago. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Spanish Kiko Martínez, former world and European champion, has announced this Monday his retirement from professional boxing at the age of 37, when he has decided that it is “the time to say goodbye” to a “beautiful sport” from which he says goodbye “healthy “, according to a message on social networks.
“I want to announce that it is time to say goodbye to boxing and leave healthy from this beautiful sport that I love so much,” the former athlete already explained in statements shared in a video on social networks.
The boxer played his last fight last April against Reiya Abe in Japan, in the eliminator for the world featherweight title. However, ‘La Sensación’, with 44 wins and 11 losses, can boast of being a four-time European featherweight and super bantamweight champion, as well as having won the IBF champion.
His most recent world title came at featherweight in 2021 after knocking out Britain’s Kid Galahad, but a year later he lost it to Josh Warrington in a controversial bout.
“24 years ago I asked my parents to sign me up to box and to this day I have not stopped for a single day with the aim of being world champion and buying my house,” said Martínez, who since that last fight In April he was meditating on his future in the ring.
‘La Sensación’ acknowledged in his statements that what he has experienced since he began more than two decades ago in this sport has been “incredible”. “I just want to thank everyone, especially my friends, my family, my wife, who have been with me supporting me from the beginning, my brothers who have always been there with me, my parents. They have been with me so much in defeats as in victories”, he concluded.