By Jim Dower: In easily the best fight on the entire undercard of the Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. vs. Sebatian Zbik fight at the Staples Center, Los Angeles, California, unbeaten junior middleweight contender Vanes Martirosyan (30-0, 19 KO’s) took out Mexican Saul Roman (34-9, 29 KO’s) with a 7th round stoppage. Martirosyan, who had a serious cut underneath his right eye and a bloody nose, knocked Roman down in the 7th with a charging attack.

After Roman got back to his feet and the action resumed, Martirosyan opened up with a flurry of shots ending with the fight being halted at 2:58 of the 7th by referee Jon Schorle. Although Martirosyan got the win, he was far from impressive in the fight because he took a lot of hard shots and was badly bruised and bloody by the time the fight was eventually stopped. If the fight had gone on for another five more rounds it would have been possibly really bad for Martirosyan because his face looked like a sight even after only 7 rounds.

Martirosyan was knocked down in the 1st round by Roman after getting hit with a left followed by a quick right. The knockdown was more of a flash knockdown but the punishment that Martirosyan absorbed for the rest of the fight wasn’t an accident. Martirosyan was taking a pounding and his shots weren’t having much effect on Roman.

Martirosyan looks slender and not all that powerful for a junior middleweight. He might want to consider moving down to welterweight where his power might be a little better. He looks like a skinny junior middleweight and I can’t see Martirosyan hanging with the better fighters in the division like Saul Alvarez.

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Showing huge power, unbeaten featherweight contender Mikey Garcia (26-0, 22 KO’s) destroyed a badly over-matched Rafael Guzman (28-3, 20 KO’s) in a 4th round stoppage of a scheduled 10 round bout. Garcia, 23, had his NABF featherweight and WBO NABO featherweight titles on the line for the fight. Garcia knocked Guzman down with a big hand in the 4th. The fight was then stopped by Wayne Hedgpeth at 1:55 of the round, as Guzman was too hurt to continue.

Garcia did little first round, mostly just following Guzman around and throwing nothing but jabs and left hooks. Garcia’s main weapon, his right hand, he kept cocked and ready but railed to really use it in the opening round. In the 2nd, Garcia cut Guzman under the right eye when he hit him with a hard right hand early in the round. It was one of the few times that Garcia threw is right in the round it had a devastating effect because it cut Guzman badly. In the 3rd, Garcia finally started throwing right hands late in the round and landed a couple of monstrous right hand shots that seemed to stun Guzman. In the 4th, Garcia started throwing with pure power with both hands and eventually caught up with a scared looking Guzman with a big right hand that put him down for the count.

In other action on the card:

Jessie Roman KO 2 James Grant
Alejandro Luna UD 4 Pablo Cesar Garcia
Oscar Andrade TKO 1 Kai Zama
vacant WBC Silver light middleweight title
Dakota Stone TKO 6 Christy Martin