By Jake Donovan

There wasn’t any hesitation when it came for Jermell Charlo to sign on the dotted line for this weekend’s junior middleweight crossroads fight with Vanes Martirosyan. The scheduled 10-round bout takes place at The Palms in Las Vegas, Nevada, opening a Showtime telecast topped by featherweight titlist Jhonny Gonzalez in a 12-round title defense versus Gary Russell, Jr.

Charlo-Martirosyan is only scheduled for 10 rounds, with no title at stake or the promise of the winner landing a title shot in the near future. Martirosyan 16 months removed from his failed bid at alphabet glory, dropping a decision to Demetrius Andrade in their Nov. ’09 vacant title fight, coming exactly 52 weeks following his Nov. ’12 technical draw with Erislandy Lara in their title eliminator.

To date, Charlo has yet to fight for a title. He had his chance last December, only for Andrade – his originally scheduled opponent – opting to move in a different direction. Such a fight was reportedly on the table for this spring, but Charlo decided to go for the fight guaranteed to get him back in the ring with minimal down time following his stay-busy win over Mario Lozano last December.

The unbeaten Texan carries that mentality into every fight, determined to control his own destiny and not allowing any entities to dictate when he next appears and against whom he will ply his trade.

“Fighting for a title is important to me. But building my brand, that's what's really important to me,” notes Charlo (25-0, 11KOs) in admitting he’d rather stay active even if with less at stake than to wait around for a title shot.

For different reasons, Martirosyan (35-1-1, 21KOs) would rather keep things moving.

“Most run their mouths, starting with Andrade. It's not only for me, it's for the fans,” Martirosyan says of this upcoming weekend’s bout “You see contenders like Jermell and myself stepping up to face each other. A lot of guys they just run their mouths but don’t back it up. Here you have the #1 and #2 contenders both winning to face each other.”

Jake Donovan is the Managing Editor of BoxingScene.com. Twitter: @JakeNDaBox