By Patrick Lujan
In the twilight of his illustrious MMA career, Guam’s heavyweight king is venturing into new territory at light heavyweight (205 lbs).
Roque Martinez, who has long said 2024 could be his last year of fighting, is on his way down to 205 with his target fight date of December 28.
“The main reason I’m making the drop to 205 lbs. is because I got a fight offer at 205,” Martinez said. “Also, the heavyweight champion I was scheduled to fight twice has again turned down our scheduled fight for multiple reasons and I don’t want to sit around and wait for him.”
Now 38 years old, Martinez started his weight cut at the end of October when he got the fight offer.
“I’m actually ahead of schedule with the weight drop. On Thanksgiving Day, I hit 218 lbs. while still having a little over four weeks left until the fight. I want to sit comfortably at 220 and cut the rest of water weight on fight week.”
The weight loss and transformation is evident in the leaner Martinez.
He once pushed 300 lbs. as a young powerlifter in his late teens, played football in the high 200’s and normally fought between 245-250.
“I was mostly into how much weight I can lift and my cardio sucked,” Martinez recalls. “Nowadays I rather have great stamina and good muscle endurance over being just strong.”
Clean eating, lots of high volume training and some 40 miles of running a week will get you nice and trim.
Fight fans will get to soon see a new look light heavyweight.
And who knows…..
“Actually thinking of possibly going lower depending how this fight goes. But definitely looking to keep at a lower weight than normal.”
