Unbeaten Lester Martinez is not letting an ailment derail his plans.

Martinez, rated No. 9 by The Ring at 168 pounds, will face Joeshon James on November 9, ProBox TV’s Chris Glover told The Ring Monday night. The 10-round bout will take place at the Osceola Heritage Park Event Center in Kissimmee, Florida and will stream live on the ProBox TV application and YouTube channel.

The Martinez-James fight was originally scheduled to take place on September 11 at the Whitesands (also known as the ProBox TV) Events Center in nearby Plant City. 

The Martinez-Jones fight is a compelling clash between two unbeaten super middleweights who defeated solid opposition to get to this point in their respective careers. 

Martinez (18-0, 15 knockouts) scored an impressive unanimous decision victory over contender Carlos Gongora in his last bout on June 28. It was a one-sided victory over Gongora, who fought to a close decision to contender Christian Mbilli. 

In his previous fight on February 23, in his hometown of Guatemala City, Guatemala, Martinez dropped journeyman Ruben Angulo once en route to a second round knockout victory in a stay-busy fight. 

The 28-year-old is co-trained by Brian ‘Bomac’ McIntyre, Esau Dieguez, and Red Spikes, all of whom also co-train newly-crowned WBA world junior middleweight titleholder Terence Crawford.

Martinez and Crawford generated buzz several weeks ago after a photo of them sparring each other in a Las Vegas gym made the rounds of social media. Crawford wanted to spar Martinez in anticipation of an opportunity to fight Ring Magazine super middleweight champion and unified world titleholder Canelo Alvarez.

Prior to the handful of fights under the ProBox TV banner, Martinez did stop once-beaten Isaiah Steen on April 10 of last year.

James (9-0-2, 5 KOs), who resides in Sacramento, California, defeated Vaughn Alexander by unanimous decision in his last bout on February 16. In his previous fight on October 21, James stopped David Stevens in the opening round of a clash between unbeaten prospects.

The 26-year-old went through a stretch of fighting four consecutive fighters with unbeaten records, culminating in the knockout win over Stevens. James scored a knockout win over Richard Brewart, Jr. in September 2022 and a split-decision draw against Javier Martinez almost eight months later. 

James has faced a total of six unbeaten fighters thus far in his career. 

Francisco A. Salazar has written for The Ring since October 2013 and has covered boxing in Southern California and abroad since 2000. Francisco also covers boxing for the Ventura County (California) Star newspaper. He can be reached at [email protected]

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