By Allen Fox: No.1 ranked WBC junior middleweight champion Vanes Martirosyan (31-0, 19 KO’s) badly wants a fight against World Boxing Council champion Saul Alvarez but he’s got to wait his turn while the young 21-year-old Alvarez is matched against other fighters.

In the meantime, Vanes Martirosyan, 25, will be fighting 41-year-old Troy Lowry (28-11, 17 KO’s) in a stay busy fight on the untelevised portion of the HBO February 4th telecast headlined by Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. vs. Marco Antonio Rubio fight card at the Alamodome in San Antonio, Texas.

While the Chavez Jr.-Rubio and Nonito Donaire vs. Wilfredo Vazquez Jr. fights will be on the televised, Martirosyan will have to settle for just being seen by the expected large crowd at the Alamodome.
Martirosyan’s career has kind of gone into a period of suspended animation, as he’s done next to zero since beating respected junior middleweight contender Joe Greene by a one-sided 10 round unanimous decision in June 2010.

Since that fight, Martirosyan has had to settle for taking on and beating Bladimir Hernandez, Saul Roman and Richard Gutierrez in his last three fights. The Lowry right appears to be an even more backwards fight for Martirosyan. Last year, Martirosyan turned down a fight against Alfredo Angulo, then the No.1 WBC contender.

According to RingTV, Martirosyan said he couldn’t take the fight at that time because he was in the process of getting a new manager and the timing was bad. It was a huge lost opportunity for Martirosyan because the fight was going to be televised by HBO and it would have given Martirosyan some great exposure. As it turns out, James Kirkland took the fight instead and easily beat Angulo.

Martirosyan told RingTV “I’ve been waiting for Canelo [Saul Alvarez] for a while now.”

Martirosyan isn’t going to have that fight handed to him. It’s likely going to require that the WBC pushes Alvarez to make the fight because Martirosyan is a dangerous opponent for the still raw Alvarez to take right now and he and his promoters at Golden Boy Promotions aren’t likely to make it easy for Martirosyan.