By Keith Idec

Vanes Martirosyan took offense to dismissive comments Canelo Alvarez made about him earlier this week.

Martirosyan slammed Alvarez in a Tweet he sent out Friday morning in response to Alvarez’s criticism during a press conference Tuesday that was streamed live on Facebook. Alvarez essentially said he doesn’t put much stock in Gennady Golovkin’s second-round knockout of Martirosyan on May 5 because Martirosyan isn’t on their level.

Martirosyan, a junior middleweight, replaced Alvarez as Golovkin’s opponent on 2½ weeks’ notice because the Nevada State Athletic Commission suspended Alvarez (49-1-2, 34 KOs) for six months for failing two performance-enhancing drug tests in February.

The Alvarez-Golovkin middleweight championship rematch has been rescheduled for September 15 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas (HBO Pay-Per-View).

“Canelo You B*tch you run the whole fight and cry like a b*tch that U won then take Roids for Rematch,” Martirosyan wrote in a Tweet. “I fight 2 weeks notice show up to fight like a man CLEAN!!!! you know me PUTO!!”

Before Golovkin knocked him out, Martirosyan (36-4-1, 21 KOs) had lost only 12-round decisions to current or former 154-pound champions Erislandy Lara (25-3-2, 14 KOs), Jermell Charlo (31-0, 15 KOs) and Demetrius Andrade (25-0, 16 KOs).

Golovkin (38-0-1, 34 KOs) chose Martirosyan as Alvarez’s replacement over Ukraine’s Sergiy Derevyanchenko (12-0, 10 KOs), then the mandatory challenger for the IBF title that since has been taken from Golovkin, Andrade and several other potential opponents who were willing to fight Golovkin on such short notice.

The 32-year-old Martirosyan, of Glendale, California, came to fight, but couldn’t withstand Golovkin’s vaunted power.

“I did see the fight,” Alvarez said Tuesday. “Of course I would. I mean, he’s the opponent I have at hand. That’s my job to watch it. As far as what I thought about the fight, look, you can’t call that a fight. He had a new opponent. That’s not his level of opponent, so I didn’t pay attention as far as that being a fight.”

Golovkin staggered Martirosyan with a right uppercut early in the second round, followed it with an overhand right to the side of his head, two stiff jabs and another flush, straight right, before connecting with a devastating left hook that knocked down Martirosyan for the first time in his 13-year pro career.

A disoriented Martirosyan attempted to get up, but he couldn’t reach his feet before referee Jack Reis counted to 10.

Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.