by Fox Doucette
(disclaimer: The bulk of this article was originally written in advance of Martirosyan’s scheduled appearance against Ryan Davis in June, then scrapped when the fight was postponed; as the fight is back on, the preview makes an appearance once more.)
Saturday night, July 7th, from the Home Depot Center in Carson, California, Vanes Martirosyan (32-0, 20 KOs) takes on journeyman Ryan Davis (24-9-3, 9 KOs) in a junior middleweight clash on the undercard of the Nonito Donaire-Jeffrey Mathebula main event.
The curious case of Vanes Martirosyan continues. The Armenian by way of Glendale, California continues to be a frustrating example of a fighter who claims that nobody will fight him while turning down any legitimate offers he gets. In an interview with the Boxing Tribune, Vanes called out Saul Alvarez and claimed he would knock out Alfredo Angulo. Yet Martirosyan continues to take fights against guys who are, on paper at least, nowhere near his level; his last four opponents including Davis had a combined 35 professional losses (112-35-4 to be precise.) Vanes got all he wanted from Saul Roman (34-8 at the time of their fight), who dropped him in the first round before the Armenian got the upper hand and closed the show in the seventh. The disconnect between what Martirosyan’s handlers and the fighter himself claim and what has actually occurred raise serious questions as to the sincerity of those assertions.
All of the above having been said, Vanes Martirosyan can flat-out bang. He may fight tomato cans and nobodies, but he has knocked out twenty of them and come off the floor to win. He is 26 years old, still very much in his athletic and boxing prime, and he looks better in every fight as he works through the technical flaws that plagued him and left him open to good solid shots like the one he ate in the Roman fight.
We may not learn much about Vanes Martirosyan Saturday night. He is in with a guy who has been stopped three times and for whom most of his 24 wins have come against the Little Sisters of the Poor. Ryan Davis is 6-8-1 in his career against guys who brought winning records into the fight, and most of those wins were against the 3-2, 7-6, 5-3-2 types rather than a guy like Martirosyan who is unbeaten in thirty-two fights. This is a severe, complete, utter mismatch. If the Armenian cannot close the show early and in spectacular fashion, it will have the same effect on his perception in the public eye as it would if Davis simply bashed his skull into submission in one round.
Fox Doucette covers Friday Night Fights for The Boxing Tribune. His weekly column, The Southpaw, appears on Thursdays. He’s really not enjoying watching Vanes Martirosyan turn into an Armenian Demetrius Andrade. Fan mail, hate mail, and Armenian girls who look like Khloe Kardashian (preferably with a brain; else send duct tape) can be sent to beatcap@gmail.com.
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