By Rick Reeno

The Pearl, Palms Casino, Las Vegas - In a high stakes junior middleweight contest, Jermell Charlo (26-0, 11KOs) go the biggest win of his career with a ten round unanimous decision over Vanes Martirosyan (35-2-1 21KOs). The scores were 97-93, 96-94, 96-94.

The two former sparring partners felt each other out in the first round. It was a battle of jabs for the most part in the early going. Charlo was faster, landing quick punches but little to no steam on them. Vanes was pressing forward, looking to land big combinations, and getting off with the bigger shots. Vanes started pressing faster in the third, hoping to disrupt Charlo's slow paced tempo. Charlo slowed things up again in the fourth, landing fast counters while making Vanes miss many of his incoming shots.

Charlo started coming forward in the fourth, with Vanes pushing him back. The action started to heat up a bit as both fighters were loading up on big punches. The fight was close for the next few rounds, with both boxers having their moments. Both of them showed a lot of respect for each other by not taking too many chances.

During the eight there was a bad clash of heads. There was a long timeout period, with Vanes getting his left eye checked out by the ringside doctors. Eventually the fight resumed and Vanes charged after Charlo with bad intentions. The action was quicker for the remainder of the contest and it continued to be a close fight with both having their moments.