Martirosyan-Lara & Salido-Garcia on November 10th at the Wynn Resort in Las Vegas

By Boxing News - 09/18/2012 - Comments

By Eric Thomas: In a fight that’s long overdo, unbeaten #3 WBC Vanes Martirosyan (32-0, 20 KO’s) will be fighting #2 WBC Erislandy Lara (17-1-1, 11 KO’s) in a mouthwatering WBC Final junior middleweight eliminator bout on November 10th at the Wynn Resort & Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada. The winner of the Martirosyan vs. Lara fight will become the mandatory challenger to WBC 154 title holder Saul Alvarez. However, the Martirosyan-Lara winner won’t get a crack at Alvarez until next year sometime.

Also on the Martirosyan-Lara card will be WBO featherweight champion Orlando Salido (39-11-2, 27 KO’s) defending his World Boxing Organization title against #1 WBO Miguel Angel “Mikey” Garcia (29-0, 15 KO’s) in the co-main event. With any luck, the Saldio-Garcia fight will eclipse the Martirosyan vs. Lara fight in terms of excitement. Both fights promise to be excellent ones, so I can’t see either one being a disappointment.

Martirosyan, 26, has been waiting around patiently for over a year now hoping to get a title shot against one of the champions. He was hoping to fight former WBA junior middleweight champion Miguel Cotto when he held the WBA title. However, Cotto never showed much interest and then was eventually beaten by Floyd Mayweather Jr. last May. Martirosyan now is hoping to get a fight against the 22-year-old WBC champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez. But before Martirosyan can get that shot he’ll have to prove that he’s better than Lara. That’s not going to be easy to do, because Lara has excellent boxing skills as well as power. Lara is a step above Kassim Ouma, who a lot of people felt deserved a win over Martirosyan when they fought in 2010.

Salido, 31, has beaten Juan Manuel Lopez twice in the last year and hasn’t had a really tough fight since losing to Yuriorkis Gamboa in September of 2010. Salido is at the top of his game right now and very hard to beat.

Garcia, 24, is still largely unproven with most of his wins coming against sub par opposition. He’s been rushed forward with the help of the sanctioning bodies, who have given Garcia an inflated ranking based on wins over 2nd and 3rd tier opposition.

Garcia could find himself wishing he had fought some quality opposition to get him ready for the Salido fight when he fights him in November. This might be too much for the stiff and robotic looking Garcia.