By William Mackay: Unbeaten junior middleweight contender Vanes Martirosyan (31-0, 19 KO’s) has volunteered to step in to replace the injured Andre Berto against Victor Ortiz on February 11th at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Berto suffered a ruptured left biceps on Monday while sparring and the injury has knocked him off the card. Berto may need surgery to repair the damaged left arm. According to latest reports, Berto is going to get a second opinion on the arm from a separate doctor to see if he really needs surgery or not.

Martirosyan said this on his twitter today: “I would step in right now if they asked me for Berto in a heartbeat. Victor knows what happens when I hit him. I’ll even go down to 147.”

Martirosyan, 25, has a fight scheduled this Saturday night against 41-year-old Troy Lowry on the undercard of the Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. vs. Marco Antonio Rubio bout at the Alamodome in San Antonio, Texas. Unless Martirosyan is able to take Lowry out early, it’s not a realistic option for Golden Boy Promotions to agree to a big junior middleweight like Martirosyan to be permitted to step in for Berto.

It obviously won’t happen because Ortiz would need time to prepare for Martirosyan’s hit and run style of fighting, which is completely different from the way that Berto fights. Martirosyan isn’t a great fighter by any means, but Ortiz would need time to get ready. That goes for Martirosyan as well. He’d be crazy to step in against the hard-hitting southpaw Ortiz with less than two weeks to go before the fight.

I’d favor Ortiz in this fight because of his better power, speed, and southpaw style. Freddie Roach, Martirosyan’s trainer, has made a mess of his fighting style and has him fighting a lot like Amir Khan with his movement and hit and run style. It’s not pleasant to watch Martirosyan with the way the way he fights now.