Martirosyan-Andrade on Sept. 7 Chavez-Vera card

Jul

Junior middleweights Vanes Martirosyan and Demetrius Andrade will meet for the WBO’s vacant belt on the undercard of the middleweight clash featuring Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. and Brian Vera on Sept. 7 at The Staples Center in Los Angeles, an event that is being promoted by Top Rank and televised on HBO.

Martirosyan (33-0-1, 21 knockouts) and Andrade (19-0, 13 KOs) are ranked Nos. 1 and 2 by the WBO. The former titleholder, Zaurbek Baysangurov, has been injured, “so they’re going to vacate his title, which is part of the deal that they had with (the) purse bid, and then, No. 1 and No. 2 will fight each other,” according to Artie Pelullo, Andrade’s promoter.

“Martirosyan-Andrade is a go. I’m very proud of Demetrius, he’s worked very hard, and it’s been a long time coming,” said Pelullo.

“Demetrius has built himself up through all of the hard work to now, to the point of fightiing for his world title. It’s on the big stage, and the co-feature of a mega fight on HBO championship boxing. You can’t ask for anything better than that.”

Martirosyan, 27, is coming off a second-round knockout of Ryan Davis in June that followed a draw with Erislandy Lara in November of last year.

A 2008 U.S. Olympian, Andrade, 25, was last in the ring for a unanimous decision over Freddy Hernandez in January, after a streak of four consecutive stoppage victories.

Meanwhile, Chavez (46-1-1, 32 KOs) will have been out of the ring for nearly a year when he rises into the super middleweight division to face Vera (23-6, 14 KOs).

Lem Satterfield can be reached at [email protected]