By Dan Ambrose: Undefeated Vanes Martirosyan (30-0, 19 KO’s) is reportedly scheduled to take on yet another soft opponent this time against former welterweight/junior middleweight contender Richard Gutierrez (26-7-1, 16 KO’s) on October 29th.

This isn’t quite the fight that boxing fans were hoping that the 25-year-old Martirosyan, #1 WBC, #2 WBO, #3 IBF, would take. Martirosyan had the option to fight highly ranked junior middleweight contender Alfredo Angulo in what wold have been a huge step up fight for Martirosyan from the 2nd and 3rd tier guys that Martirosyan has been feasting on his entire six-year pro career.

Martirosyan instead decided to play it safe by not taking the Angulo fight and now going after the 33-year-old Gutierrez, who has lost five out of his last seven fights. It’s another safe fight for Martirosyan, and one almost guaranteed to allow Martirosyan to remain on tract for a title shot against unbeaten WBC junior middleweight champion Saul Alvarez next year.

It won’t endear Martirosyan with boxing fans, however, many of which are tired of seeing Martirosyan facing nothing but B and C level opposition while at the same time making noises about wanting to fight top guys. When Martirosyan was finally given the chance to fight a dangerous guy in Angulo, Martirosyan decided to take on the struggling Gutierrez instead. Good move, Martirosyan.

Martirosyan looked terrible in his last fight, beating Saul Roman by a 7th round TKO after getting dropped in the 1st and badly hurt. Martirosyan took a lot of punishment in that fight and had to use movement to keep out of the way of the harder hitting Roman. It’s hard to see Martirosyan beating guys like Angulo and Saul Alvarez in looking at how poor Martirosyan performed in that fight. Perhaps it’s for the best that Martirosyan is fighting Gutierrez instead of Angulo, because he at least will stay unbeaten for a little while longer until he gets his title shots against Alvarez.