“The hand feels good,” Martirosyan said. “Thank God, we got an X-ray and they said it was just hurt real bad.
“During the fight, a punch landed wrong. ...But it’s not broken or anything like that.”
The injury came at no cost to Martirosyan’s perfect record, which now stands at 23-0 with 14 knockouts, and figures to have little impact on his training going forward.
On Monday, Martirosyan will get back in the gym and hopes to be able to test the hand in about a week.
“The swelling has gone down a lot,” Martirosyan said. “I’ll start doing my physical stuff before I start hitting something.”
It is the second left-hand injury suffered by Martirosyan in the last eight months. On June 27, 2008, he suffered a similar injury early in a 10-round bout with Angel “Toro” Hernandez, in which he fought on to win by unanimous decision.
X-rays following that fight showed no break, but lingering concern over the healing hand caused Top Rank to shelf plans for an Aug. 2 appearance for Martirosyan on a high profile HBO-televised card at the Palms Casino in Las Vegas.
He did not return to the ring until Sept. 19, when he won another unanimous 10-round decision against Michael Medina.
The only other significant injury in Martirosyan’s four-year career was a back injury suffered in training in Feb. 2008 that caused him to pull out of a March 28 bout against Hernandez.
Martirosyan said his second fight of 2009 is tentatively set for April 10, with the Morongo Casino and Resort in Cabazon as a possible venue.
“Last fight, I looked like crap, to be honest,” Martirosyan said. “I know I did because something wasn’t right. Something wasn’t working for me, but I had an off-night and I’ll show them next fight who I really am.”
?GABRIEL RIZK covers sports. He can be reached at (818) 637-3226 or at gabriel.rizk@latimes.com.
