By Dan Ambrose: The best fighter on Saturday’s card at the Staples Center in Los Angeles might not even be fighting in the main event when unbeaten junior middleweight contender Vanes Martirosyan (29-0, 18 KO’s) fights Saul Roman (34-8, 29 KO’s) for the vacant WBC Silver junior middleweight title on the undercard of the Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. vs. Sebastian Zbik. Martirosyan, 24, needs this fight to put him in the position where the top junior middleweight champions can’t say no to him.

Some boxing fans are under the impression that Martirosyan is being handled with kid gloves in order to shield from the top fighters in the division, but that’s not true. Martirosyan can’t get the champions to fight him. He’s just too good. He’s been after WBA junior middleweight champion Miguel Cotto for ages but can’t get a fight with him. As such, Martirosyan has had to settle for guys like Roman, Bladimir Hernandez and Joe Greene.

Martirosyan has got the power, speed and boxing ability to be a champion if he’d only get a shot at a title. But he’s now ranked number #1 by the WBO, #4 IBF and #4 WBC, meaning that Martirosyan will be getting his shot at a title very, very soon. I can’t imagine that the champions can go another year without having faced him.

Martirosyan might be better off abandoning the junior middleweight division entirely and moving up in weight to go after the top fighters at middleweight. The pickings are kind of slim at junior middleweight and who is there other than Cotto? Saul Alvarez would be a good fight but Martirosyan will probably have to wait another year to get a shot at him and who wants to throw away time while waiting? Martirosyan needs to move up soon if he can’t get any of these guys at junior middleweight to fight him.