With
Martin Murray having visa issues (stemming from past legal issues) preventing
him from facing WBC middleweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. on June 16th at the Sun Bowl in El Paso, Texas, the hunt is on for a new opponent. The name
I'm hearing most is Vanes Martirosyan.
“Well,
he's a logical, possible opponent,” said Bob Arum on Tuesday afternoon from his
offices in Las Vegas. Martirosyan is promoted by Top Rank (which is always helpful,
of course) and he said on his Twitter feed that he is ready, willing and able
to accept this assignment. Of course, he's made a lot of promises on Twitter that
have not been kept, in terms of fighting (most notably a bout against Alfredo
Angulo last November). But you would have to think there is almost a sense of
desperation here, given that his career seems to have stalled since beating Joe
Greene on HBO back in June of 2010.
He may have no other choice but to take this opportunity.
And
yes, both have trained before in the past at the Wild Card Boxing Club and
worked under Freddie Roach. But the reality is that Martirosyan rarely goes to
the Wild Card anymore (I saw him for the first time there in months, last week)
and Roach hasn't really trained him on a day-to-day basis in a long while.
Besides
if Simon Brown and Maurice Blocker (who truly were close friends, not just two
guys who happened to work at the same gym) can get it on, I don't see this
being a hindrance to this fight. I actually think it provides a decent
storyline, given they've had some heated sparring sessions (where Martirosyan
has seemingly gotten the better of Chavez).
