Golovkin’s promoter not interested in Lara bout

By Boxing News - 02/10/2014 - Comments

lara5By Chris Williams: If you were hoping to see a fight between Cuban Erislandy Lara and WBA middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin in April or anytime in the future, you can pretty much forget about it. Golovkin’s promoter Tom Loeffler of K2 Promotions says that Lara isn’t someone that they have on their radar.

Loeffler wants to match Golovkin against one of the middleweight champions like Peter Quillin or Sergio Martinez in a unification bout. Loeffler points out that Lara doesn’t fight for HBO like Golvokin, and that he’s had draws in fights against Vanes Martirosyan and Carlos Molina in the past. He also says that Lara doesn’t fight in the same division as Golovkin.

Loeffer said this on his social media site: “GGG response to Lara: Are you Serious?”

“He [Lara] is not approved by HBO and never on our radar, he should be calling out Quillin, if he wins, he becomes interesting,” Loeffler said. “Lara fights on Showtime and had draws with Vanes and Molina, GGG vs Stevens=high ratings, who watches Lara? Lara fights on Showtime and is Jr Middle, why would he be on our radar? Lara should call out Floyd, same promoter same TV and he beats both Khan and Maidana, should be easy fight to make. Good fight between 2 solid guys. Yes, same promoter same TV and same weight, makes more sense for Lara to call out Floyd.”

Loeffler would be a lot more believable with what he’s saying if Golovkin were actually fighting interesting opponents with more cache than Lara, but he’s not. How can Loeffler say “who watches Lara,” when Golovkin is fighting lesser opponents like Osumanu Adama, Nobuhiro Ishida, Gregorz Proksa and Curtis Stevens? Lara would likely school all of those guys and make them look incredibly bad. If Golovkin was facing high quality opponents each time he fights, then you could understand Loeffer not having interest in a guy like Lara, but that’s not happening. Golovkin is facing a lot of guys that bring nothing to the table in terms of ratings and they have no chance of beating him. Ishida, Adama, Prokza and Stevens were all guys that were already beaten on paper the moment the fight contracts were signed with Golovkin. With Lara, you can’t say that because he would have a real chance of beating Golovkin.

I know Loeffer and trainer Abel Sanchez want Golovkin to be seen as a wrecking crew type of a fighter, but I’m noticing that he doesn’t take risky fights, and I’m starting to think he’s more hype than reality. They don’t want to move him up for a fight against Andre Ward, even though that fight would be huge. And now Lara is another one that they don’t want to match Golovkin with. I think there’s some fear there, and I guess I don’t blame them if they are afraid. The way that Golovkin was getting hit in his last fight against Adama, I could see Lara taking Golovkin to school and badly exposing him. If that happens, then Golovkin could forget all about getting the big money fights against Sergio Martinez, Saul “Canelo” Alvarez, Miguel Cotto and Peter Quillin.



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