By: William Holmes

Cabazon, California was the host city for tonight’s ESPN Friday Night Fights card which featured the first fight for Vanes Martirosyan since his ties with Top Rank were severed. Martirosyan now fights with Goosen Tutor Promotions and has just recently began training with Joe Goossen. Anthony Peterson, the brother of junior welterweight contender Lamont Peterson, was also on tonight’s card and was featured in the co-main event.

The opening bout of the night was between Anthony Peterson (32-1) and Puerto Rican boxer Marcos Jimenez (20-4) in the lightweight division. This was only Anthony Peterson’s second bout in over two years.

Anthony Peterson has a similar style to Lamont Peterson and he started off the first round strong by flicking out his jab and following it up with an overhand right. He mixed up his punches to the body and head of Jimenez and early on it did not look like Peterson was suffering from any ring rust.

Jimenez was able to pick up the pace in the third round, but he was warned from the referee for low blows. Anthony Peterson was able to re-establish control in the fourth round and never relinquished control of the bout. Jimenez made it a fight and never backed away from the more experienced Peterson, but Peterson was simply out boxing Jimenez and looked more comfortable inside the ring as the fight progressed.

There were no surprised on the scorecards as Peterson won on all three cards with scores of 100-90, 99-91, and 98-92.

The main event of the night was between Mario Lozano (27-4) and Vanes Martirosyan (31-1-1) in the junior middleweight division. Martirosyan had a slight height and reach advantage over Lozano, but he also had a significant experience advantage.

Martirosyan significant talent advantage was evident from the first round on. He landed a quick two punch combination in the first round and immediately found a home for his straight right hand. He busted the nose of Lozano in the first round and looked to be light years ahead of Lozano in terms of skill.

Martirosyan connected with a counter right hand straight to the chin in the second round that sent Lozano to the mat. Lozano, to his credit, was able to get back to his feet and fight on. Martirosyan pressed forward in the second round in an effort to end the fight, but Lozano survived the round.

Martirosyan peppered Lozano with straight right hands and body shots all night long. Lozano soldiered on and was not knocked down for the remainder of the bout. He showed heart and guts, but that was not enough to win the fight.

Many of the rounds were close, but Martirosyan won a majority, if not all, of them. The final scores were 100-89 on all three scorecards for Vanes Martirosyan.

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