At The Cosmopolitan, Las Vegas, Lara vs Martirosyan never really rose above a simmer. But to be fair, most of us weren’t expecting to see major fireworks in this Junior Middleweight meeting. Erislandy Lara retained his WBA title via Unanimous Decision following scores of 115-112 and 116-111 twice, which frankly are a poor reflection of how uncompetitive this contest actually was. Boxing Base had it a lot wider at 118-109, with Martirosyan’s numbers looking all the more bleak due to being docked a point for a low blow in the 11th round.
Lara didn’t unleash anything close to a campaign of hurt on Martirosyan tonight, but he did serve up a highly-discplined boxing clinic to Martirosyan, who approached this fight completely wrong. Martirosyan ended up enjoying his best moments of the affair in the later rounds by getting on top of Lara and letting rip with combinations, but had already spent the majority of the fight trying to beat Lara in a tactical chessmatch he just couldn’t win.
The early stanzas were close, sure, but Lara gradually became more and more comfortable on the outside, firing textbook straight punches and a missile left hand, and was basically picking off Martirosyan from the 7th round onwards. Martirosyan’s boiling frustration got the better of him in the 10th round, causing him to land a low blow on Lara. Martirosyan got away with the infraction, but was soon deducted a point in the 11th for the same offence. A raging Martirosyan entered the final round with peaking urgency as he tried his best to close the show and force Lara to fight, but it was all too late.
Lara, who has always been happy to stick to a highly-economical, safety-first gameplan, refused to get drawn in and continued to box his way to final bell. Lara now builds to 23 wins, 2 defeats, 2 draws, 13 knockouts, while Martirosyan falls to 36 wins, 3 defeats, 1 draw, 21 knockouts.
Dispense your thoughts on Lara vs Martirosyan in the comments below, including those for Charlo vs Trout and Charlo vs Jackson. Where do tonight’s victors go from here?
