Glendale’s Vanes Martirosyan on title shot: ‘People will remember my name forever’

Vanes Martirosyan has been through the boxing ringer. Black eyes, tough losses, splits with trainers and a promoter.

So it means something that the 2004 U.S. Olympian from Glendale is still standing now, with a chance less than three weeks after his 30th birthday to win his first world title Saturday night.

Martirosyan (36-2-1, 20 knockouts) will fight Cuba’s Erislandy Lara (22-2-2, 13 KOs) for the World Boxing Assn. “world” super-welterweight belt at the Cosmopolitan Hotel in Las Vegas, headlining a Showtime-televised card that includes two other title bouts in the 154-pound division.

In 2012, Martirosyan and Lara fought to a technical draw after the fight was stopped because Martirosyan was cut over the left eye by an accidental head butt in the ninth round.

A year after that, Martirosyan suffered his first loss, to Demetrius Andrade, and was so demoralized he pondered leaving the sport. A meeting with the late promoter Dan Goossen changed his mind.

“I didn’t talk to him as a promoter in that conversation,” Martirosyan said of Goossen, who made the fighter his final signing. “I just talked to him, and the way he looked into my eyes, I could read that he believed in me and he made me fall in love with boxing again. That’s why I came back and fought with my heart.”

A gritty October 2014 victory over Willie Nelson followed, one month after Goossen’s death from liver cancer.

Although Martirosyan lost for a second time in March 2015 to another Saturday title fighter, Jermell Charlo, by unanimous decision, he rallied with a two-knockdown victory by decision over Ishe Smith in September.

Martirosyan has parted amicably with his trainer, Joe Goossen, Dan’s brother, who was previously occupied with training Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. Martirosyan now trains in the Bay Area at a gym operated by reformed former BALCO founder Victor Conte, who employs simulated high-altitude training and legal nutritional supplements in his training methods.

“Before he left me, we had lunch – he treated and he hugged me,” Joe Goossen said. “I expect Vanes to do well in this fight. Whenever you leave the hearth and home … if you want to be a championship, sometimes you’ve got to go the extra mile. When he trains like that, Vanes is impossible to beat.”

Lara, 33, who boxed Canelo Alvarez to a split-decision loss in 2014, is similarly confident.

“Since we already fought once, I know what needs to be done to win this fight,” he said. “[Trainer] Ronnie [Shields] has a great strategy that I know we’ll be able to execute. Since the Canelo fight, I’ve been training at a higher level. I feel I’m in a groove right now. I’m more focused now than ever before.”

“We’ve both gotten better, both have more experience,” said Martirosyan. “It’ll be a great fight for the fans and a do-or-die fight for me. I’ve waited for the championship to come. A loss would set me back -- really, really back.”

While Lara aspires to defend the belt in his native Cuba, if “everything will be safe” following the easing of diplomatic tensions with the U.S., Martirosyan sees symmetry in the matchup.

“My dream as a kid was to be a champion,” Martirosyan said. “I wanted a gold medal, and didn’t get one – I lost to a Cuban [Lorenzo Aragon Armenteros] -- but I’ve gotten far in the pros. Getting a world title by beating a Cuban would be like getting both the medal and the belt at once.”

“The love of boxing kept me going. I did it since I was 7 years old, so if I can still do something, why stop? If I can win a title, when I die, people will remember my name forever. Nobody can change if I’m a champion. All the great fighters in the world who’ve passed away, people talk about them and their great fights. This could be one of those fights for me, the one that makes me king of the division.”

The Showtime card begins at 6 p.m. Pacific time, with Jermell Charlo fighting John Jackson for the World Boxing Council super-welterweight title left vacant by Floyd Mayweather Jr.’s retirement, and Charlo’s twin, Jermall, defending his International Boxing Federation belt against former champion Austin Trout.