Angulo: Lara is more talented than Canelo

By Boxing News - 03/05/2014 - Comments

003_Canelo(Photo credit: Esther Lin/Showtime) By Dan Ambrose: Alfredo Angulo (22-3, 18 KO’s) has had a lot of opportunities to sit and watch the previous fights of former WBA/WBC junior middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (42-1-1, 30 KO’s) while getting ready for their fight this Saturday night in Las Vegas, Nevada, and Angulo has concluded that Canelo doesn’t have the same kind of talent that WBA interim junior middleweight champion Erislandy Lara possesses.

Angulo lost to Lara by a 10th round TKO last year in June after their fight was halted in the 10th round. Angulo gave Lara a lot of problems in knocking him down twice in the fight. If not for Angulo suffering an eye injury, he’d have very likely won the fight.

“I think Lara has more talent than Canelo Alvarez,” Angulo said to esnewsreporting. “He’s had a long career in the amateurs and has more experience.”

It’s hard to disagree with Angulo about Lara having more talent than Canelo. All you’ve got to do is sit down and watch 5 minutes of the two fighters different fights and you can spot almost immediately that Lara is the far more talented fighter than Canelo. Maybe that’s the reason why Canelo has chosen not to fight Lara all these years despite his high interest in facing him. Lara has been calling out Canelo since the stone age, and he’s been ignored by the red-haired Canelo. Lara couldn’t even get a fight against WBA middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin, because his promoter isn’t interested in making a fight against him either.

The differences between Lara and Canelo have to do with Lara having more hand and foot speed, better mobility, superior defensive skills, and more athleticism. Canelo is flat-footed, slower, heavy-bodied, and much bigger than him. Canelo is more like a super middleweight, who fights in the junior middleweight division. Lara is a legit junior middleweight, so he’s lighter on his feet and has blinding fast hand speed.

Lara has been robbed in fights against Carlos Molina, Vanes Martirosyan and Paul Williams. He should have an unblemished record. Those fights showed how tough it is for a fighter when he’s not the popular guy.

Angulo said this about Canelo: “I plan to test him like he’d never been tested before. I don’t think anyone has ever hit Canelo as hard as I’m going to hit him.”

There’s no question that Angulo is going to hit Canelo harder than he’s ever been hit before, because Canelo hasn’t been matched against any sluggers during his career until now. Golden boy Promotions has been very careful in who they’ve matched Canelo against. The hardest puncher that Canelo has faced was welterweight Kermit Cintron.



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