By Anson Wainwright

Willie Nelson will be fighting for the third time in four months when he faces Vanes Martirosyan in an intriguing looking junior middleweight crossroads bout this Saturday.

 

Nelson (23-1-1, 13 knockouts) is eager to face Martirosyan at Foxwoods Resort, Mashantucket, CT, live on Showtime 9 p.m. ET/PT.

 

“It’s going to be a great fight,” Nelson told BoxingScene.com. “I’m going to come out with a win and that will be great for my career.

 

“It’s going to be a tough fight. He has experience and has been in with some of the best.”

 

The Ohio native see’s both strengths and weaknesses in Martirosyan’s game.

 

“His conditioning is his strength. He has good punch output at the end and that’s because of his conditioning,” the 27-year old does see areas he can take advantage of. “His weakness is that he doesn’t mind taking a punch and sometimes he gets a little careless.”

 

Nelson has been active this year stopping Darryl Cunningham in a round back in June and a points win over unheralded Luis Grajeda back in August.

 

Going into that fight he says he took Grajeda lightly.

“I made a lot of mistakes because I was overconfident,” said Nelson. “The fight was easy for me but he had his moments.”

Though Nelson rather handily on the scorecards, he never had things all his own way and was rocked late in the contest.

“He is a puncher who caught me with a good punch when I was relaxed and cold,” added Nelson. “He did a lot of running and was awkward. I couldn’t throw combinations like I wanted to.”

By staying active Nelson has been able to stay in optimum shape which has doubtlessly helped him after a period of inactivity.

“It’s been a carryover from one training camp to the next without any long breaks,” he said. “I trained six-weeks for Cunningham, then Grajeda, and now Martirosyan.”

 

Nelson is keen to make an impression on Showtime.

“It’s a great opportunity for me,” he said. “Not a lot of people have seen me fight. Now, I’m on the big stage I deserve to be on. It’s been a rocky road getting here and I’m very happy for this opportunity to fight on Showtime.”

The bout looks the sort that neither can afford to lose if they want to be involved in the big fights at 154-pounds.

Nelson knows that the win is important but believes if the fight is action packed both guys could remain in the title picture.

“Yeah. It depends, though. If it’s a great action fight and close at that end, neither fighter should be hurt too much, but otherwise the winner goes on and the loser soaks in his tears.” said Nelson.

 

Questions and/or comments can be sent to Anson at elraincoat@live.co.uk and you can follow him at www.twitter.com/AnsonWainwright