By Dan Ambrose: 25-year-old top junior middleweight contender Vanes Martirosyan (29-0, 18 KO’s) will be looking to show that he’s the best fighter on tonight’s card in his fight against Saul Roman (34-8, 29 KO’s) on the undercard of the Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. vs. Sebastian Zbik fight at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, CA. The Martirosyan-Roman fight is scheduled for 12 rounds, but few boxing fans see it going that far.

Roman, 30, has lost three out of his last five fights and one of those defeats was a stoppage against little known Thomas Oosthuizen in South Africa. Martirosyan is likely going to get Roman out of there early to impress fans at ringside.

Martirosyan has looked good in his last three fights, beating Kassim Ouma, Joe Green and Bladimir Hernandez since 2010. What Martirosyan needs now is a big step up in competition after he beats Roman, because it’s time that Martirosyan either take on a champion or at least a top five guy in the junior middleweight division. With Martirosyan’s speed, power and boxing ability, he would be more than a handful for champions Miguel Cotto, Sergiy Dzinziruk, Cornelius Bundradge and Saul Alvarez. The problem is getting those guys to want to fight Martirosyan. He’s been after a fight against Cotto for ages now and has had no luck in getting him into the ring. It may require that Martirosyan become Cotto’s mandatory challenger before he gets a shot because it sure isn’t happening without that.

Martirosyan might do well to consider moving up to the middleweight division in the near future to look for bigger fights. Martirosyan, 6’0″, showed in his recent sparring session with number #1 ranked WBC middleweight contender Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. that he can not only hang with the Mexican fighter but that he can dominate him and make him look bad. That tells me that Martirosyan could be wasting his time with the junior middleweight division and needs to consider moving up in weight or at least floating between the two divisions to find the best opponents each time out rather than wasting time fighting guys like Roman and Hernandez. Martirosyan is better than that.