Events

Jermell Charlo stayed unbeaten and on the way up in the junior middleweight division with a 10-round decision win over Vanes Martirosyan tonight in Las Vegas, winning on scores of 96-94, 96-94, and 97-93 in a tightly contested chess match of a bout, which aired on Showtime.
     BLH had it 96-94 for Martirosyan, but neither fighter exactly took the fight by the throat. It was a well-matched bout with Martirosyan (35-2-1, 21 KO) starting off well, working nicely to the body, while Charlo (26-0, 11 KO) mostly looked to utilize his jab, which Vanes was doing a good job of countering in the early stages.
     Charlo, 24, did make some nice adjustments in the middle rounds, using his feet to move more often, and taking away the body work of Martirosyan, 28, which left Vanes lacking a bit in effective shots being landed. The two clashed heads in the eighth round, with Martirosyan telling the ringside doctor his vision in the eye was "very blurry," but never explicitly saying he couldn't see. The doctor clearly didn't want to stop the fight on the cut, and he did not. The cut also didn't appear to impact Martirosyan's performance the rest of the way.
     In the final two rounds, Vanes did get back to the body work, but it wound up being officially too little, too late.