Lester Martinez is looking to strengthen his position among the best super middleweights on the planet when he takes on Croatia’s unbeaten Luka Plantic on August 29.
The ProBox TV event, set for the Galen Center in Los Angeles, will also feature another crucial encounter in chief-support, as streaking light heavyweight contender Najee Lopez risks his lofty world rankings when he shares dukes with unbeaten Colombian southpaw Juan Carrillo.
Martinez, 20-0-1 (16 KOs), knows that victory over the unbeaten Plantic, 13-0 (10 KOs), puts him in pole position to challenge the winner of the proposed October clash between WBC champion Christian Mbilli and Saul “Canelo” Alvarez.
Martinez, from Guatemala, held Mbilli to a wildly entertaining 10-round draw last September on the same Las Vegas bill that saw Canelo lose all his 168lbs titles to Terence Crawford. Mbilli was subsequently upgraded from interim beltholder to champion, making him an attractive target for the comebacking Canelo after Crawford retired.
That interim strap then became the property of Martinez in March when he widely decisioned Immanuwel Aleem over 12 rounds.
Victory here, against the highly regarded Plantic, and the biggest of fights beckon for the 30-year-old.
Plantic has a history with Mbilli, too. During an illustrious amateur career that saw him run both Joshua Buatsi and Ben Whittaker close, he stopped a raw Mbilli inside one round back in 2013 and was a 2020 Olympian who went on to win bronze at the European championships.
As a professional, Plantic has cruised through his first 13 bouts, taking the unbeaten records of Bruno Acosta and Shadri Bwogi in his two most recent outings.
Fire extinguishers might also be needed for the co-feature as thrill-seeking Lopez collides with Carrillo in a potential light-heavyweight barnburner.
The 26-year-old Lopez, 16-0 (13 KOs) and from Puerto Rico, wowed audiences in March when he halted Manuel Gallegos in the eighth round of an up-and-down brawl so typical of Garry Jonas’ ProBox TV.
Lopez is ranked fourth by the WBA, ninth by the IBF, 10th by the WBC, and the WBO place him 14th.
Carrillo, a 33-year-old southpaw, can boast a victory over Gilbert Castillo Rivera and, last time out, he ruined the unbeaten record of Marlon Delgado with a fourth-round knockout.
Also scheduled for a potentially show-stealing cameo is Ramon Cardenas, the leading junior featherweight who gave the all-conquering Naoya Inoue a hard fight 15 months ago and, in December, knocked out Erik Robles Ayala in five rounds.
