Lara vs. Martirosyan: This should be a war

By Boxing News - 10/24/2012 - Comments

Image: Lara vs. Martirosyan: This should be a warBy Allan Fox: Cuban Erislandy Lara (17-1-1, 11 KO’s) is finally where he wants to be on the verge of earning himself a fight against WBC junior middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez next year. The only thing that separates him from accomplishing his goal is a fight against unbeaten Vanes Martirosyan (32-0, 20 KO’s), who Lara will be fighting next month on November 10th at the Wynn Resort, in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Lara and Martirosyan are #1 and #2 in the World Boxing Council rankings and fighting in a WBC final eliminator bout to get to the inexperienced 22-year-old Alvarez. The winner of this fight will get a crack against Alvarez next year some time as long as Alvarez doesn’t get the WBC to let him bypass the winner for a fight or two or if he vacates the belt. Anything is possible for Alvarez, because he seems to be not in a hurry to fight Lara and Martirosyan. He’s easy fights and those are the not easy to beat.

Lara, 29, would have to be considered the better fighter compared to the 6-foot Martirosyan. Lara is quicker, more accurate, better defensively and the more accomplished fighter in terms of amateur experience. What Martirosyan has going for him, however, is his bigger size compared the 5’9″ Lara. He’s almost three inches taller than Lara, but only has a half inch reach advantage. That obviously going to be a problem for Martirosyan because he won’t be able to use his size the way he would have liked to had he had a real size advantage over him.

Lara hasn’t fought nearly as many times as Martirosyan, but he’s still faced the far superior competition in fights against Paul Williams, Carlos Molina, Ronald Hearns and Freddy Hernandez. Those are all tough opponents, and Lara has one loss and a draw from those fights. The loss came came against Paul Williams in a controversial decision that a lot of boxing fans felt that Lara should have won.

You can expect Lara and Martirosyan go fight on a war on November 10th with both guys freely trading and looking to take each other out in order to earn the big money payday against Saul Alvarez.



Comments are closed.