#5 Frank “The Ghost” Martin (18-0, 12 KOs) rallied late to pull out a razor-close twelve round unanimous decision victory over 2016 Olympic bronze medalist Artem Harutyunyan (12-1, 7 KOs) on Saturday night in a WBC lightweight title eliminator at the Chelsea at the Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas.
Harutyunyan took a knee in the twelfth to escape the pressure that Martin was putting on him. Interestingly, he went down without getting hit.
Harutyunyan just saw Martin coming, and he looked like he’d had enough of getting worked over by him.
Harutyunyan got up and made it out of the round without getting hit too many more times by Martin, who was swinging wildly and missing frequently in his desperation to score a knockout.
The scores:
- 114-113
- 115-112
- 115-112
The highly technical Harutyunyan surprised a lot of people by out-boxing & out-punching the 28-year-old Martin in the first five rounds and showing off his superior skills.
Martin wasn’t pulling the trigger on his punches the way he needed to in the early rounds to dominate the way he had predicted he would.
Martin started clawing his way back into the fighting beginning in the sixth with his power shots & pressure, which had Harutyunyan wilting.
Harutyunyan fought well in rounds seven & eight, using combination punching and boxing skills to get the better of Martin.
Beginning in the ninth is where things fell apart for Harutyunyan, as his left starred, giving him problems from the strong jabs that Martin had him. Harutyunyan looked tired & worn out from the ninth round on and used a lot of movement to evade Martin.
After this performance by Martin, Errol Spence Jr needs to slow down the progression of ‘The Ghost’ because he’s NOT ready for the likes of Devin Haney, Shakur Stevenson, or Gervonta Davis.
Elvis Rodriguez stops Viktor Postol
Light welterweight fringe contender Elvis Rodriguez (15-1-1, 13 KOs) wore down and stopped the tough former WBC 140-lb champion Viktor Postol (31-5, 12 KOs) in the seventh round.
Rodriguez had Postol, 39, in trouble after clipping him with a big right hand to the head. After stunning Postol with that shot, Rodriguez continued his assault, leaving the referee with no choice but to step in and halt it. The fight was stopped at :23 of round seven.
Postol was knocked down late in the sixth by Rodriguez, and he never recovered from that shot. Up until the sixth, Postol had been getting the better of Rodriguez, taking advantage of his robotic style and tendency to throw only single shots instead of combinations.
Freudis Rojas defeats Diego Sanchez
Welterweight Freudis Rojas (11-0, 11 KOs) kept his perfect record intact with a seventh round knockout of Diego Sanchez (19-3, 16 KOs). Rojas, 24, was hitting the overmatched Sanches at will in the seventh round when his corner pulled him out. The bout was halted at :58.