Erislandy Lara vs. Vanes Martirosyan
The main event of Saturday nights HBO card was a fight between two of the top junior middleweights in the world; Erislandy Lara and Vanes Martirosyan. Both fighters have very impressive amateur backrounds and also have good professional careers thusfar. While Martirosyan was trying to stay unbeaten, Lara was trying to continue his ascent as one of the most talented fighters in boxing.
The fight began as most people expected, Lara was using his skill level and quickness to land pot shots and dance around the ring. Martirosyan was pressuring Lara and landing flurries of solid punches. Depending on what type of boxing each judge favored all of the early rounds could have gone to either fighter. Martirosyan was definatley more aggressive but Lara seemed to be outclassing him.
The fight not only provided good action but also controversy. It seemed that every time the two men clinched something "dirty" would happen. Whether it was Lara putting Martirosyan in a headlock or Martirosyan throwing late body punches as referee Jay Nady was breaking them apart. Clearly there was no love loss between the two men. As the fight wore on the action heated up.
With each round that went by the high skill level of Lara seemed to shine brighter. But Martirosyan would not give up or stop pressuring Lara. All night he was landing crisp punches which was hard to do against Lara who was moving very well in the ring and has very strong defensive skills. While Lara wasn't as active in the punching department the punches he did land were much heavier than the punches being landed by his counterpart.
About twenty seconds into the 9th round the southpaw stance of Lara and orthodox stance of Martirosyan finally became a problem. They both threw punches at the same time causing there heads to come forward and violently clash. Both men seemed hurt by the clash of heads but Martirosyan went down immediatley in immense pain. He had a gash over his left eye that seemed as deep and as wide as the Grand Canyon. Martirosyan was sent to his corner to be looked at by the ringside doctor who immediatley put a stop to the fight, which was clearly a smart decision. The fight was sent to the cards and once again the fate of Lara would be in the hands of the unpredictable judges. Even though the 9th round was only twenty or so seconds the judges were still required to turn in scores for that round. So if a judge had the first 8 rounds even the fight would hinge on a twenty second round. And unfortunatley that is what happened. One judge scored the fight in favor of Martirosyan, one judge had it in favor of Lara each by one round. The final judge had the fight even, causing it to be ruled a draw.
While the fight being ruled a draw wasn't outrages it was definatley frustrating. I myself thought Lara was winning at the point of the stoppage and many of the analysts agreed. Even unofficial ringside judge Harold Lederman had Lara winning by one round. Lara has been the victim or horrible decisions in the past specifically in his only loss against Paul Williams so for him this was unbearable. In the post fight interview Martirosyan said as soon as his stitches come out he wants a rematch and also said that Lara was a dirty fighter. For his part Lara seemed to imply that because this card wasn't put on by his promoters that there was some shady business going on and that was the reason for the decision draw. So even though Lara's record now stands at 17-1-2 most big time boxing fans will view his true record at 19-0-1. Both fighters have bright futures in the sport. While a rematch would be warranted a fight fans would much rather see is between Lara and Mexican superstard "Canelo" Alvarez. Lets hope whoever he fights, Lara is back in the ring soon.
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