Vanes Martirosyan

By Manuel Perez: Undefeated light middleweight prospect Vanes Martirosyan (21-0, 13 KOs) defeated previously unbeaten Michael Medina (18-1, 14 KOs) by a 10-round unanimous decision on Friday night at the Buffalo Bill’s Star Arena, in Primm, Nevada. The final judges’ scores were 100-90, 97-93 and 98-92. Martirosyan, 22, a former 2004 Olympian for the U.S., had a much tougher time then the final scores would have you believe, as many of the early rounds were incredibly close due to Medina nailing Martirosyan often with right hands to the head and lefts to the body. However, by the sixth round Martirosyan seemed to increase the power in his shots and fight with much more energy than he did in the first half of the fight and dominate the rest of the way over Medina.

Martirosyan focused on using his jab and moving in the first round, snapping off his jab into the face of Medina. There was little action other than the two fighters trading jabs with one another. Martirosyan controlled the second round, using hard combinations and jabs against the wary Medina, who looked as if he was nervous about getting hit with one of Martirosyan’s big power punches.

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By Michael Lieberman: Undefeated light middleweight prospect Vanes Martirosyan (20-0, 13 KOs) won an easy 10-round unanimous decision over veteran Angel Hernandez (28-7, 16 KOs) on Thursday night at the Orleans Hotel & Casino, in Las Vegas, Nevada. Martirosyan, 22, knocked Hernandez down once in the fight, dropping him with a thudding right uppercut in the 1st round. It looked then that more knockdowns would follow in the forthcoming rounds, but Martirosyan was unable to add to this knockdown for the remainder of the fight, having to be content with winning just by a lopsided margin over Hernandez. The final judges’ scores were 100-89, 100-89 and 100-89.

The fight was never remotely close, mainly because the 32 year-old Hernandez didn’t have the power, hand speed or boxing ability to compete with Martirosyan at any step of the way through the fight. What Hernandez did have, however, was a good chin, which enabled him to weather the monstrous uppercuts and right hands that Martirosyan was periodically tagging him with. I still think Martirosyan would have succeeded in knocking Hernandez out, if Martirosyan had stopped with his constant moving, which seemed to undercut a lot of his power.

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By Jim Slattengren: Undefeated junior middleweight prospect Vanes Martirosyan (19-0, 13 KOs) destroyed an over-matched Michi Munoz (20-2, 13 KOs) on Thursday night, stopping him in the 3rd round of a scheduled 10-round bout at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino, in Las Vegas, Nevada. Munoz was knocked down three times in the bout, once in the first and twice in the third. After fighting in an abnormally conservative manner in the first two rounds of the fight, Martirosyan, 21, a fighter with extraordinary right hand power, finally unleashed a series of hard right hands in the 3rd, dropping Munoz twice to the canvas, and prompting for referee Kenny Bayless to stop the fight at 2:20 of the 3rd round.

Martirosyan, a former 2004 Olympic welterweight for the United States, considered perhaps the hardest punchers (with right hand) of the junior middleweight prospects, came out slowly against Munoz, 26, in the first round of the fight. The slow start appeared to be design, fo Martirosyan’s new trainer, Ronnie Shields, has been trying to get him to work slower, focusing more on defense due Martirosyan’s tendency to tire out in fights, as well as having defensive involving him dropping his left hand when throwing his right.

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