Martinez's Promoter Details Situation With WBO Title, Berchelt

By Victor Salazar

New York - A title fight was officially announced earlier today between WBO Jr. Lightweight champion Roman ‘Rocky’ Martinez (29-2-3, 17 KO’s) and Vasyl Lomachenko (5-1, 3 KO’s).

The fight will take place June 11th in the Theatre at Madison Square Garden. However there are still questions surrounding the number one contender Miguel Berchelt, who recently won the interim title and was named the mandatory to Martinez.

Zanfer Promotions won a purse bid to promote the bout between Martinez and Berchelt. However, an injury forced the postponement of the fight and Berchelt fought on and knocked out top rated George Jupp to become the interim champion. That’s where the rules in boxing hit a grey area.

Berchelt still claims that he is next in line to fight for the title - not Lomachenko. Peter Rivera of PR’s Best Boxing says that once Berchelt became the interim champion, the rules changed.

“My point of view, he was the mandatory at a certain point,” Rivera told BoxingScene.com. “Rocky hurt his left hand and we postponed the fight. Berchelt took the decision to fight for the interim title and he won that fight. So what that means is he’s not a mandatory, he’s the interim champion. So that means at some point the interim champion and the regular champion have to meet to make one champion.”

Rivera says after the Lomachenko fight - should Martinez be victorious - they will definitely try and negotiate the fight with Berchelt.

“We don’t have to fight him right now,” Rivera explained. “He fought his guy, now we have our opportunity to defend against Lomachenko. After this if we need to fight him, we certainly will fight him.”

An opportunity to be in New York and on HBO fighting against Lomachenko is an opportunity that Martinez and Rivera could not pass up on.

“At the beginning it was the idea of HBO for Lomachenko-Walters. They didn’t choose us because we had a mandatory. Once Walters pulled out and Berchelt fought, it was a great opportunity to make a great fight and Lomachenko wanted to move up to 130. It made sense because it was on the eve of the Puerto Rican Day Parade."