Vanes Martirosyan Sticks to Script in Return Bout

In recent years, no fighter has made as much noise to draw attention to him as former 2004 Olympian Vanes Martirosyan. The loudmouthed Armenian based out of Glendale called everyone out that he could, insisted that he was being ducked, and ultimately failing to make a fight materialize when those fighters happened to talk back.

Yet being in the stable of one of boxing’s most revered trainers in Freddie Roach and promoted by Top Rank, Martirosyan’s career has had “failure to launch” written all over it. 

His record of 34-1-1 is respectable enough, but the wins had come against the common set-up opponents a prospect should beat and the loss and draw came when it was time to back up his talk. A technical draw against Erislandy Lara came when an accidental head butt caused a halt to a fight that was slipping out of his hands and the loss most recently came against the similarly untested Demetrius Andrade for a vacant Junior Middleweight title.

Following the loss to Andrade, Top Rank severed their ties with the disappointing prospect who recently signed with Goosen-Tutor promotions. Last Friday, Martirosyan made his debut with new trainer Joe Goosen on ESPN Friday Night Fights winning a decision over humdrum Mario Lozano and it didn’t look any more different than what is expected for Martirosyan at this stage of his career.

Lozano had fought almost his entire career against woeful opponents in Mexico, compiling a record of 28-4 and coming off of a loss in his most previous fight before last Friday night. Though he was outclassed from the very start and even knocked down in the second round, Martirosyan’s routine performance was to be expected and didn’t raise his stock for a potential big fight.

Signing with Goosen will almost certainly mean that Martirosyan won’t have time to feast on the easy opponents and may potentially find himself in a meaningful fight sooner than later. Dan Goosen has been known to roll the dice with his stable and not beefing their records up with meaningless fights for an over-extended period of time.

Andre Ward was entered into the Super Six tournament a few years back with a record of 18-0 and a long shot to win it all, but Ward did so with ease and has established himself as one of boxing’s universally regarded best fighters. Other times, like rushing a green Cris Arreola into a fight with Vitali Klitschko or allowing a career Junior Welterweight Josesito Lopez face Saul Alvarez in a Junior Middleweight clash, didn’t end up too well.

It’s up to Martirosyan to live his lifelong dream of winning a world title, which will require a toughness and drive we haven’t seen from him yet, or continue his path of facing meandering opponents until he can no longer beat them. Martirosyan must make the most out of this second chance to prove to everyone he is as good as he says he is.