On Saturday Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. showed that there is more substance to his game than many had given him credit for with a grueling decision over former WBC middleweight champion Sebastian Zbik. Facing off with the stubborn German inside of the Staples Center in Los Angeles, the fight seemed like a toss-up after twelve rounds but Chavez’s body attack and harder punching on the inside gave him the nod.
While the win paves the way towards greener pastures for the newly-crowned 25-year old champion, who very well may be meeting up with Miguel Cotto in October in Las Vegas, there was another fighter from the Wild Card stable who also delivered a gutsy performance of his own. Dropped and bloodied in the first round, junior middleweight contender Vanes Martirosyan weathered an early storm before eventually halting Sinaloa’s Saul Roman inside of seven rounds.
After a somewhat tepid 2010 campaign in which he pulled out victories over Kassim Ouma and Brooklyn’s Joe Greene, the Armenian born, Glendale resident seems poised for a banner year in 2011. Trainer Freddie Roach oversees the duties of Chavez and Martirosyan and was adamant about how their sparring sessions leading up to their respective fights were beneficial to each pug.
“Vanes did a great job getting ready for the fight,” said Roach. “Vanes is a little faster than Zbik and you could see that the training paid off in Chavez’s fight. Chavez also helped Vanes get ready for Roman and you saw that in Vanes’ performance. They both worked well together.”
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With the win Martirosyan sees his record rise to 30-0 with 19 knockouts and as far as Roach is concerned, a crack at WBC junior middleweight champion Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez is the most ideal clash at the moment. Martirosyan is ranked #4 in the WBC rankings and Roach feels that his charge has the tools to upend the champion.
“Everybody is talking about how great [Alvarez] is. I think Vanes would knock him out in one round. Vanes won the eliminator to face him. Let’s see how good ‘Canelo’ really is,” Roach continued.
It’s an intriguing fight but who knows how everything will play out. Alvarez has a June 18th title defense against Yorkshire’s Ryan Rhodes in Guadalajara, Mexico to deal with and after that he had been rumored for a September return to Las Vegas against Nicaragua’s trash-talking terror Ricardo Mayorga.
Chris Robinson is based out of Las Vegas, Nevada. He can be reached at [email protected]
