By Dan Ambrose: #2 WBO Demetrius Andrade (19-0, 13 KO’s) will be facing #1 WBO Vanes Martirosyan (33-0-1, 21 KO’s) this Saturday night for the vacant WBO junior middleweight title on HBO at the American Bank Center, in Corpus Christi, Texas, USA. While Andrade still still hasn’t beaten Martirosyan, he already believes that he’ll beat Floyd Mayweather Jr., Miguel Cotto, Erislandy Lara and Saul “Canelo” Alvarez if given the chance.
The chances of Andrade getting fights against any of them are quite low, even if he stops Martirosyan on Saturday night. Andrade doesn’t have the name attract interest from any of those fighters except for perhaps Lara.
Andrade said via RingTV “I would beat him by decision, if not, I may knock him out if I had to. That could be. I just feel that I’m a southpaw, and I’m long and rangy. I’m fast….I would stop him [Canelo]. I would walk his little a** down. I would stop him [Cotto], too. I would stop him just because he’s smaller, and I’m longer, and I would have him walking into punches all night long.”
Andrade, 6’1″, is going to have his hands full against Martirosyan because this is by far the biggest puncher and best opponent that he’s been in with. You don’t like to see guys taking such a big jump up in competition like Andrade is doing for the title. This is a fight that could really go badly for him if Martirosyan is able to get inside Andrade’s long reach to beat him up in close. Andrade is an outside fighter with mostly post shot skills. In the fights where his opponents have been able to get inside on him, he’s taken some big shots and knocked looked solid on his thin frame. Andrade is very similar to the lanky junior middleweight contender Willie Nelson in terms of frame and fighting style. Martirosyan is more stocky, and the much better puncher of the two.
At 25, Andrade is at disadvantage in that he’s starting out near the end of Mayweather and Cotto’s careers. They’re not going to wait around 4-5 years for Andrade to become better known with casual boxing fans. Andrade will miss out on these guys entirely. Canelo won’t bother fighting Andrade unless he beats someone like Erislandy Lara or Austin Trout on top of a victory over Martirosyan. But Andrade will still likely have to wait a long time before Canelo will look his way because there are a lot of better options for Canelo than a fight against Andrade.
Andrade has beaten the following guys in his last five fights: Grady Brewer, Saul Duran, Angel Hernandez, Rudy Cisneros, Alexis Hloros and Freddy Hernandez. Those aren’t big names and it’s one of the reasons why Andrade has been held back from developing a fan base. Hopefully if he beats Martirosyan on Saturday then he’ll start fighting better known opposition. You can hope but it’s possible that he’ll continue to focus on facing obscure opposition that will keep him from picking up fans. If that’s the case then Andrade will likly never get a fight against the likes of Canelo.
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