On Saturday September 7th, former U.S. Olympian and undefeated Demetrius Andrade will vie for his first world championship, when he takes on fellow former U.S. Olympian Vanes Martirosyan in a twelve round bout from the STAPLES Center in Los Angeles.
The bout, which will be televised live on HBO Championship Boxing, will be the co-feature to the Super Middleweight clash between Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. and Bryan Vera.
Demetrius Andrade of Providence, Rhode Island was a former world amateur champion and has a perfect professional mark of 19-0 with thirteen knockouts and is currently the number two contender for the WBO belt.
Vanes Martiroysan of Glendale, California is 33-0-1 with 21 knockouts.
ProBoxing-Fans.com ranks Andrade at #8 and Martirosyan at #7 in the junior middleweight division.
Andrade, who is co-promoted by Banner Promotions and Star Boxing, was scheduled to contend for the belt on July 6th but an injury to then-champion Zaurbek Baysangurov forced the title to become vacant, thus setting up this showdown of undefeated former Olympians.
“I am looking forward to this fight and have been waiting for this fight ever since I walked into the gym at age 7,” said Andrade. “I always wanted to be champion of the world and on September 7th I will be crowned champion. I wanted to win an Olympic gold medal and since they took that from me, I am going to take this world title.”
“I was a 2008 Olympian and he made it in 2004. I will show him that if I was around in 2003 and 2004, he would not have made the team,” finished Andrade
“This will be an outstanding fight and we worked hard on getting this fight on HBO,” said Banner Promotions CEO Arthur Pelullo. “We feel that Demetrius has all the talent to become a star in this sport and only needed the opportunity on this kind of stage and on September 7th he will get that chance. I want to thank my partner Joe DeGuardia, HBO, Top Rank and the WBO for making this great fight. I have a feeling that after September 7th, not only will Demetrius be a world champion but he will be a household name and in line for even bigger fights.”
