You can’t blame Charles Martin for expecting a knockout no matter who he faces.

The former IBF heavyweight titlist envisions that exact scenario playing out in Saturday’s clash with Luis Ortiz, with the pair of heavy-handed southpaws seeing just seven out of a combined 67 fights go to the scorecards. Martin has every intention of seeing that trend through in this weekend’s Fox Sports Pay-Per-View main event.

“This will be a great fight. Two southpaws,” Martin noted of the upcoming IBF heavyweight title eliminator. “You don’t see that too often in the heavyweights. You’ll get your thrills with the boxing because we are both good technically.

“Secondly, you will see a great knockout because this fight is not going twelve rounds.”

Martin (28-2-1, 25KOs) has been forced to go the distance four times in his nine-plus year career. Three of the five—two wins and a draw—came in 2013, with the lone other occasion coming in a September 2018 narrow points loss to then-unbeaten Adam Kownacki.

Following a six-round win over Vincent Thompson in their September 2013 battle of unbeaten prospects, Martin has scored knockouts in 17 of his past 18 victories. The lone exception came in March 2019, when Gregory Corbin was disqualified in the eighth round for repeated low blows.

Among the 26 opponents conquered inside the distance was Vyacheslav Glazkov, whom Martin defeated via third-round injury stoppage to win the IBF heavyweight title in January 2016. The St. Louis-bred heavyweight—now based out of Carson, California—saw his reign end just twelve weeks later in a second-round knockout loss to then-unbeaten Anthony Joshua (24-2, 22KOs).

Martin enters Saturday’s bout with Ortiz (32-2, 27KOs; 2NC) having won his last three starts. The most recent was a February 2020 sixth-round stoppage of Gerald Washington (20-4-1, 13KOs) who appears on the PPV undercard in a ten-round bout with Ali Eren Demirezen (14-1, 11KOs). With just three career bouts lasting beyond the sixth round, the former champ—who turns 36 in April—doesn’t anticipate needing all twelve to take care of the nearly 43-year-old Ortiz on Saturday.  

“Absolutely, I am going to knock him out,” vows Martin.

Jake Donovan is a senior writer for BoxingScene.com. Twitter: @JakeNDaBox