Gennady Golovkin booked a mismatch for Cinco de Mayo and we got the mismatch in the ring. Vanes Martirosyan was never going to be competitive here, but at least he was a late replacement. GGG stopped him in two.
Vanes Martirosyan (36-4-1, 24 KOs) actually came out pretty aggressive in the first round. He kept his jab going and worked in a few nice right hands. Vanes might even have hurt Gennady Golovkin (38-0-1, 34 KOs) at the end of the right with a really nice pair of shots. Unfortunately, this only seemed to motivate the feared Kazakh puncher. Golovkin came out and opened the round with a beautiful right over the top and uppercut. Vanes kept fighting valiantly, but another epic uppercut caught him a bit later. As the late notice opponent backed to the ropes, GGG fired another right over the top followed by the left hook that did most of the damage. From there it was academic as Martirosyan laid face first on the canvas. He started to get up, but ended up deciding not to as veteran referee Jack Reis counted to ten.
There was some talk from the HBO crew on whether not GGG landed a shot with Martirosyan down. He did, but the fight was over anyway. This caused some major Roy Jones Jr PTSD on the mic from his DQ loss to Montell Griffin all those years ago that I quite enjoyed. Post-fight Gennady said his power was back and didn’t elect to call out anyone though Max Kellerman made him talk about Canelo a bit. He kept saying it didn’t matter to him who he fights next.
HBO aired its first female fight in its long history in the opener. Pound for pound elite undisputed female welterweight champion Cecilia Braekhus (33-0, 9 KOs) had to get off the canvas for the first time in her career, but she overcame the adversity to take a clear and fun decision over game American Kali Reis (13-7-1, 4 KOs). This was a good showing for the women’s side of the sport on a big stage.
