By Chris Williams: Undefeated Top Rank junior middleweight contender Vanes Martirosyan (28-0, 17 KO’s) stayed unbeaten with an unimpressive 10 round unanimous decision win over Joe Greene on the undercard of the Yuri Foreman vs. Miguel Cotto bout on June 5th at the Yankee Stadium, in the Bronx, New York. The Martirosyan-Greene fight was the co-main event of what turned out to be a rather disappointing card, as the Martirosyan was incredibly boring and the main event between Cotto and Foreman, never a particularly interesting fight from the 1st round, was a huge letdown when Foreman injured his bad right knee in the 7th and eventually it led to him being stopped in the 9th.

Martirosyan, 24, is thought by some to be a future champion at junior middleweight or middleweight. He’s currently trained by Freddie Roach, and has seen his fighting style change dramatically in the past three years from that of a slugger to more of a Foreman type of fighter that bounces around on the outside and jumps in and out to land his shots and then scurry away.

Like Foreman, Martirosyan now clinches an awful lot. In his fights against Kassim Ouma and Greene, Martirosyan often tended to come at his opponents trying to land and would then, whether he landed or not, would grab his opponents in a clinch or a headlock to prevent them from throwing anything at him while he was in close.

It’s never interesting to see a fighter use this kind of style, but it seems even less interesting to see Martirosyan use it because he’s not particularly fast nor is he a huge puncher. He seems to be just doing enough to get his wins. He beat Ouma in his previous fight in January 2010, using the same punch and grab technique and it was just so awful to look at. Ouma was wise to Martirosyan’s tactics and was able to time him and light him when Martirosyan would come forward trying to land and then immediately clinch. I thought Martirosyan lost that fight by at least two rounds.

However, the judges somehow saw him winning by a fairly large decision. But it’s not a good sign that Martirosyan is struggling and not looking good against guys like Ouma and Greene. In the Green fight, Martirosyan looked tired by the 6th round, and lost what little power and speed he had on his punches. From the 6th round on, Martirosyan looked like a wet noodle as he would forward trying to land and then immediately drape himself on his opponent for the obligatory clinch.

Ranked #3 WBO, #6 WBC, #8 IBF and #8 WBA, Martirosyan is no doubt going to be getting a title shot against one of the champions in the near future. However, I just can’t see any of them that he could beat right now. The WBC title will be open because champion Sergio Martinez is vacating the title. But it’s unlikely that Martirosyan will be fighting for that title yet, because he’s ranked only #6.

However, I wouldn’t like his chances against the number #2 and #3 contenders, Antonio Margarito and Kermit Cintron. I think both of those fighters are level above him. And I think Paul Williams is a couple levels above Martirosyan. I do think that Martirosyan could possibly beat the number #1 ranked WBC contender Julio Cesar Chavez Jr., but then again, I don’t think that Chavez Jr. should even be ranked in the top 15. He looks second tier to me.

Right now, I see Martirosyan at around number #14 or #15 in the light middleweight division. He needs a heck of a lot of improvement if he wants to win and hold a title. His trainer Roach needs to get Martirosyan to stop bouncing around all the time when he fights. It’s so annoying to watch and such a waste of energy. Also, all that clinching and low blows that Martirosyan was doing in the Greene fight, just awful. I don’t what Roach can do to improve Martirosyan’s hand speed and power.

I think he’s pretty much stuck being slow and an average puncher but he could at least fix the bouncing all that clinching. I’d like to see Roach teach Martirosyan to throw a jab with power. He just seems to flick his arm out like a wet noodle, as if gravity is forcing his hand down and preventing him from getting any power on his shots.