Glendale’s Martirosyan officially set to fight Golovkin
Just shy of three years removed from his last fight, Vanes “Nightmare” Martirosyan will return to the ring.
Despite his time away, Glendale’s Martirosyan, a former United States Olympian and world title challenger, will return in the highest profile bout of his career when he faces one of the pound-for-pound greats Gennady Golovkin on May 5 at the StubHub Center in Carson as the match was made official on Wednesday, as first reported by the Los Angeles Times’ Lance Pugmire.
The undefeated Golovkin (37-0-1, 33 knockouts) chose to fight Martirosyan (36-3-1, 21 KOs) in the aftermath of the cancelation of a Golovkin-Canelo Alvarez rematch following the latter’s withdrawal after he twice tested positive for Clenbuterol, a banned performance-enhancing drug, in February.
Golovkin, 36, will put his World Boxing Assn., World Boxing Council and International Boxing Organization titles up against Martirosyan, 31.
Martirosyan began his professional career training under Freddie Roach and also trained under Ronnie Shields and Joe Goossen and most consistently was a fixture with Roma Khalentaryan at Glendale’s Main Event Gym. He’s currently training at the Glendale Fighting Club under Edmond Tarverdyan, who he’s trained with on and off through his career.
May 21, 2016 stands as Martirosyan’s last fight, when he lost to Erislandy Lara via unanimous decision in a rematch from a technical draw in November of 2012. The draw against Lara was the first blemish of Martirsoyan’s career, but in the span of his last eight fights that begins and ends with the Lara bouts, Martirosyan is 4-3-1.
Martirosyan has previously fought on ESPN and HBO, vied for the World Boxing Organization world super welterweight title in November of 2013 when he lost a split decision to Demetrius Andrade, and collected notable wins over Willie Nelson, Ishe Smith and Joe Greene. One of his losses, in March of 2015 to Jermell Charlo, was a disputed unanimous verdict.
Throughout his career, Martirosyan has never been stopped, but that will likely be tested by Golovkin, whose punching power is renowned and who has fought at the middleweight (160 pounds) and super middleweight (168) classes, while Martirosyan’s career has been predominantly at the 154-pound super welterweight class.
Golovkin is on the heels of a controversial split draw against Alvarez in September of 2017 in which many pundits believe GGG won.
“Vanes Martirosyan is now the most important fight of my career. He has my respect and I am training hard to defend my titles against him,” Golovkin stated in a release. “I am happy to be back on HBO and fighting at StubHub Center because they have great boxing fans. I will give my fans another big drama show.”
Twitter: @TCNGrantGordon
