By Dan Ambrose: The World Boxing Council has chosen to remove unbeaten Vanes Martirosyan from the WBC junior middleweight eliminator for a shot at WBC 154 pound champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez after Martirosyan failed to say yes to a second eliminator bout against Erislandy Lara after their previous fight ended in a 9th round technical draw last November.
With Martirosyan now out of the hunt for a fight against Alvarez, the WBC will select another contender to face Lara in the WBC eliminator bout. A possible option is #3 WBC Sergiy Rabchenko (22-0, 16 KO’s), a hard hitting contender from Belarus with good skills but limited experience. He may not have the talent to beat Lara, but he does have the power to give Lara a difficult fight for as long as it lasts.
Martirosyan is perhaps better off not facing Lara for a second time because it looked like Lara was taking over the fight last November, and it’s hard to see Martirosyan winning that fight no matter what he does. Lara is simply a better fighter, and Martirosyan isn’t going to be able to get past that talent gap.
Martirosyan should look to angle himself to fight the WBO junior middleweight champion Zaurbek Baysangurov or the IBF champ Cornelius Bundrage. Those are guys that are probably a lot easier to get a fight against, and they’re not arguably as talented as Canelo.
The negative for Martirosyan is that a fight against either one of them would bring in a lot less money than he would get against Canelo, but what good is it if he’s not good enough to beat Lara? Martirosyan met his match in that fight and it will only get worse in a rematch for him.
Lara has a good chance of winning the WBC eliminator against Rabchenko or whoever the WBC picks for him to fight. However, Lara will still likely have to wait until 2014 to get a shot at Canelo, unless Canelo gets beaten by WBA junior middleweight champion Austin Trout.
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