Martirosyan: I’m going to beat Gennady Golovkin

By Boxing News - 04/18/2018 - Comments

Image: Martirosyan: I’m going to beat Gennady Golovkin

By Dan Ambrose: Vanes Martirosyan (36-3-1, 21 KOs) must feel like he’s hit the lottery today with his May 5th fight against IBF/WBA/WBC middleweight champion Gennady ‘GGG’ Golovkin (37-0-1, 33 KOs) being announced for HBO World Championship Boxing at the StubHub Center in Carson, California.

Despite going through a dry spell in his career with no victories in the last three years, Martirosyan feels he’s going to beat GGG on May 5th.

This is the biggest fight of Martirosyan’s 13-year pro career by far. Martirosyan’s toughest fights to this date have come against Demetrius Andrade, Erislandy Lara, Ishe Smith, Willie Nelson, Kassim Ouma, Saul Roman, Jermell Charlo and Joe Green. Martirosyan came up short in losses to Charlo, Andrade and Lara, but they were all close fights. It’s not as if Martirosyan was trounced by those fighters. They close fights that were winnable ones for Martirosyan if he had a better gas tank and if he’d been more aggressive.

Martirosyan is NOT expected to beat Golovkin, 36, and many feel this fight will be over with fairly quickly. Martirosyan is a straight up slugger, and the type that Golovkin does historically done well against. Martirosyan isn’t a runner, so he’s not likely to trash talk the way Saul Canelo Alvarez did last September and then immediately get on his bike avoid GGG for 12 rounds.

”I do believe in my heart I’m going to beat (Golovkin) because he’s never fought someone with my style,” Martirosyan said.

Golovkin will need to knock Martirosyan out fast for him to be given any credit whatsoever from beating him. The fight is perceived as a mismatch by the boxing public, which means that Golovkin will not be able to sit back behind his jab and peck away at Martirosyan the way he did against Canelo, Daniel Jacobs and David Lemieux.

Already the fans are calling Golovkin a ‘ducker’ for him deciding to fight the 31-year-old Martirosyan rather than facing Demetrius Andrade or Sergiy Derevyanchenko. Those two fighters are perceived to be the tougher tests, even though Martirosyan did very well against Andrade in their fight five years ago in 2013. Martirosyan knocked Andrade down in the 1st round and was getting the better of him through the first four rounds of the contests before he eventually faded and lost the fight by a 12 round decision.

”I’m sparring, I’m on weight,” Martirosyan said to the latimes.com. “When they asked me if I’d take this fight, I said yes. I didn’t ask about money at all. It’s a good show for L.A. Cinco De Mayo. Armenians will pack the place. I have a lot of Mexican fans.” Martirosyan said.

Martirosyan will try and make a fight of it. If Golovkin is the same fighter he was in 2016, he should respond well and blow Martirosyan out of the water on May 5. If Golovkin is the faded guy that some boxing fans believe him to be due to his recent fights against Canelo Alvarez and Daniel Jacobs. Golovkin will need to look really impressive against Martirosyan for him to be seen as the same guy, because he’s perceived to be facing a much lesser fighter than himself.

Golovkin could have taken the fights with Demetrius Andrade and Sergiy Derevyanchenko, but those were high risk fights for small money. Golovkin wasn’t to risk his big money rematch with Saul Alvarez for a high risk, low paying fight with Andrade or Derevyanchenko. Martirosyan is a low-paying, low risk fight for Golovkin, so it’s worth it for him to take the fight. Once Golovkin is done with his rematches with Canelo, then he’ll likely face fighter like Derevyanchenko, Andrade and Daniel Jacobs if he decides to stay at 160.

With Golovkin fighting Martirosyan on May 5, it means he’ll be fighting twice in 2018 rather than just once in September. There was speculation that Golovkin would steer around the May 5th fight date to wait until his rematch with Canelo in September. That would have been bad for Golovkin because he would have been rusty by the time he stepped fought into the ring to fight the 27-year-old Canelo in September. Ring rust is harder on older fighters than younger fighters.

Golovkin could have waited until June to fight the likes of WBO middleweight champion Billy Joe Saunders, but that’s not a fight that would resonate anymore in the U.S than the Martirosyan fight. The casual boxing fans in American have no idea who Saunders is. As such, it wouldn’t benefit Golovkin to give up the valuable Mexican holiday Cinco de Mayo on May 5 for a fight that the U.S boxing fans couldn’t care less about against Billy Joe Saunders.

GGG-Saunders would be a fight for Golovkin’s own personal goals of trying to unify the division, but that fight wouldn’t be any more interesting than Golovkin’s title defense against Martirosyan. You can argue that Saunders would be a far less entertaining fight for the American boxing fans to see than Golovkin vs. Martirosyan. The reason for that is Saunders is a pure runner, who just tries to out-slick his opponents by boxing and moving for 12 rounds instead of fighting them.