Lara Stops Aguiar In 1st Round TKO

By Boxing News - 01/10/2009 - Comments

erislandy4335By Manuel Perez: Undefeated light middleweight prospect Erislandy Lara (3-0, 2 KOs) stopped a badly over-matched Rodrigo Aguiar (5-4, 3 KOs) in the 1st round of a scheduled four-round bout on Friday night at the Buffalo Bill’s Star Arena, in Primm, Nevada. Lara, 25, landed a nice left-right combination at the end of the 1st round, knocking Aguiar down on his backside. Aguiar then staggered to his feet but referee Joe Cortez put a stop to the bout at 2:59 of the 1st.

Lara, a three-time Cuban national champion who defected from Cuban in 2007 and now lives in Hamburg, Germany, looked good in the fight. Using a steady jab and straight left hands, Lara, a southpaw, backed up Aguiar continuously in the first round, hitting him cleanly with powerful shots to the head.

However, Lara’s defense was lagging at times as he would occasionally stop in front of Aguiar and cover up while Aguiar nailed him with shots. Thankfully, these spots were brief and Lara was able to continue firing left hands and jabs.

A minute into the first round, Lara began doubling up on his left hand, nailing Aguiar with double hooks to the head and body. Aguiar took the shots without any trouble and would come back with his own big shots which often landed.

Near the end of the round, Lara backed Aguiar up to the ropes with straight left hands. Then with seconds left in the round, Lara landed a perfect right-left combination that badly hurt Aguiar, knocking him on the canvas back first. Aguiar slowly got to his feet, and staggered around briefly, prompting for referee Joe Cortez to waive off the fight at 2:59 of the round.

Despite getting the fast knockout, Lara looked very beatable. His hand speed wasn’t all that impressive nor was his power. He hits hard but not on the level of fighters like James Kirkland, Alfredo Angulo, or Joel Julio. At the same time, his work rate isn’t as good as fighters like Angulo or Paul Williams, which would put him at a huge disadvantage if he were to fight either of them.

His defense, as I already pointed out, is wide open and he’s very easy to hit. For a fighter with over 300 amateur wins while fighting for Cuban, he seems to have a lot of defects that he needs to iron out before he can ever be considered as a potential champion as far as I’m concerned. His jab wasn’t that powerful and nothing like the better boxers in the light middleweight division like Sergeii Dzinziruk or Sergio Martinez, both of whom I see easily beating Lara.

If there’s anything that I see that he has going for him, it’s his youth. At 25, Lara has time and can possibly wait those guys out, but he’ll have to wait a long time because Angulo, Kirkland and Williams are very young fighters as well, and I don’t see Lara ever beating those guys.

Perhaps Lara would be better off losing some weight and moving down to the welterweight division where the fighters have slightly less power and he’d have a better chance at winning a title someday. I doubt he’d do well there, either, but he’d have a slightly better chance at winning a title and holding it for a brief amount of time.



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