Pirog Retains WBO Title With Martirosyan Stoppage In Russia

WBO middleweight champion Dmitry Pirog was in fine form Sunday night, retaining his title against the challenge of Gennady Martirosyan at the Olimp in Krasnodar, Russia.

The six foot-one inch tall Pirog held a massive edge in height, towering over the five foot seven-inch tall Martirosyan, who looked several weight classes smaller.

Pirog controlled the pace from the beginning with his just one hand doing the lion’s share of the work in the early rounds, rattling off left jab, left uppercut combinations and digging in with hard lefts to Martirosyan’s ribs.

The champion initially crouched down to Martirosyan’s level, standing right in front of the Armenian born Russian resident. While he was outboxing the challenger, Pirog also took some unnecessary punishment when Martirosyan would open up with his offense, mainly short hooks to the head and body.

Once Pirog started to gain distance, Martirosyan had to brave a gauntlet of lefts and right in order to come forward and by the third was getting rocked as well as swelling and suffering cuts around the right eye.

Martirosyan tried stepping up the aggression in the middle rounds and while he had moments here and there, Pirog never let the challenger into the fight, stopping any rallies with good defense and counters, largely keeping Martirosyan on the defensive with a harassing jab and ceaseless combinations.

After getting outboxed round after round, the closing of the seventh saw Martirosyan let his hands go for an extended period but Pirog’s good footwork kept him from absorbing more than some body punches and a couple of shots upstairs.

The challenger started off strong in the ninth, getting in a few good right hands but faded from the effort and was picked apart by Pirog, who was particularly effective with the jab.

By the tenth, Martirosyan’s right eye was completely closed, prompting the St. Petersburg resident let fly with both hands. This go for broke approach gave Martirosyan his best round of the bout but also spurred on Pirog to step up his efforts, strafing the challenger with a punishing array big punches.

Before the eleventh frame could start, Martirosyan’s corner threw in the towel.

Pirog improves to 19-0 (15), retaining the WBO crown for the second time. Martirosyan sees a five bout win streak snapped, dropping to 22-3 (11).