Vanes Martirosyan-Joe Greene set as Foreman-Cotto co-feature

BoxingScene.com's Rick Reeno reports today that a co-feature fight for the June 5 HBO card featuring Yuri Foreman and Miguel Cotto at Yankee Stadium has been signed.

Rising 154-pounders Vanes Martirosyan (27-0, 17 KO) and "Mean" Joe Greene (21-0, 14 KO) will put their clean records on the line against one another in an interesting matchup. Martirosyan struggled in January with a seemingly-rejuvenated Kassim Ouma on the Top Rank Live debut. Greene, on the other hand, will be taking a very big step up in class with this one. The 24-year-old New Yorker was scheduled to face Sergio Martinez in January 2009, but had to pull out due to kidney stones. Last year, he fought just twice, against familiar stepping stones Delray Raines and Chris Gray. He decisioned both over eight rounds.

Martirosyan has the better resume overall, including amateur pedigree, but Greene could get his career back on track in a big way with this fight. He's a very good prospect whose hype has died down with his relative inactivity and lack of steps up in competition. He bought his way out of his promotional deal with Warriors Boxing to sign with The Empire Sports and Entertainment, who also represent Shannon Briggs and Hasim Rahman.

There was a lot of talk that all Mike Jones had to do was win and not get hurt last Saturday in Atlantic City, which he accomplished, and that he'd then be in the co-feature for this card. Considering the scope of this event, it's possible HBO is looking at a triple-header, so we could see Foreman-Cotto, Martirosyan-Greene and a Mike Jones fight, which would be a very nice show.