By Dan Ambrose: Unbeaten junior middleweight contender Vanes Martirosyan (32-0-1, 20 KO’s) should consider himself very lucky that his fight was halted against Erislandy Lara (17-1-2, 11 KO’s) in the 9th round from a clash of heads last Saturday night because Martirosyan looked like he was on his way to losing that fight.

As it was the fight was halted and ruled a 9th round technical draw when Martirosyan was cut over the left eye during the head clash. It worked out well for Martirosyan because he was getting dominated in the last three rounds of the fight and he looked tired and confused against the southpaw Lara.

The judges scored the fight 87-84 for Lara, 86-85 for Martirosyan and 86-86 even. I had Lara winning by an 87-84 and I was really surprised to see a judge scoring it a draw another seeing Martirosyan winning.

Martirosyan was getting hit repeatedly by lead left hands from Lara and was no longer really throwing anything back at him for fear of getting countered by the sharp shooting Cuban. The fight has turned around completely by the 6th, as Lara clearly was the better fighter.

I had the first four rounds split even, but then Lara took over the fight and was schooling Martirosyan. There’s no way that Martirosyan should have won this fight because he was getting a boxing lesson and it was totally one-sided at the end.

Now Lara and Martirosyan will have to fight again in order to determine who will be the mandatory challenger for WBC junior middleweight champion Saul Alvarez. I can see another fight ending head-butt in the rematch because their styles clash. Both guys like to come forward a lot and that leads to a lot of head clashes.

Before Martirosyan was cut he’d already collided heads with Lara a number of times in the fight. I just hope that the judges can agree on a winner the next time their fight is stopped due to a headbutt because they really blew it this time.