Erislandy Lara vs. Ishe Smith possible for May 2nd in Las Vegas

By Boxing News - 03/11/2014 - Comments

lara212By Dan Ambrose: WBA interim junior middleweight champion Erislandy Lara (19-1-2, 12 KO’s) will likely be making his first defense of his interim WBA title against former IBF 154 lb champion Ishe Smith (25-6, 11 KO’s) on May 2nd in Las Vegas, Nevada, according to Dan Rafael of ESPN. This is the fight that Golden Boy Promotions CEO Richard Schaefer is talking about making next for Lara.

It’s clearly not the big fight that Smith was hoping to get in taking on Saul “Canelo” Alvarez, but the red-haired Mexican fighter told him point blank last Saturday night that “you’ll have to wait.” It doesn’t matter that Canelo doesn’t have anyone better than Lara to fight next on July 26th. He’ll likely fight someone like Carlos Molina, who is clearly a couple of steps below Lara in terms of talent. Lara isn’t on Canelo’s radar for 2014, and there’s a chance that he still won’t be on Canelo’s radar in 2015, especially if he’s forced to move up to the middleweight division due to his struggles to melt down to the 154 lb division. Lara just thinks Canelo is afraid to fight him for fear that he’ll get beaten and exposed once again like he was against Floyd Mayweather Jr. last September.

It’s highly probable that Lara will never get the chance to fight Canelo unless he cleans out the 154 lb division and becomes a star in his own right. That’s going to be tough for Lara to do without him facing a star fighter like Floyd Mayweather Jr. that he can try and beat to become a household name.

Lara tried to goad Canelo into fighting him by showing up at his post-fight press conference last Saturday night after Canelo’s win over Lara’s recent knockout victim Alfredo Angulo. Why Canelo chose to fight a guy that Lara had recently stopped is something only Canelo and Golden Boy would know, but it’s pretty obvious that Canelo wanted an easy mark for his first pay-per-view fight on Showtime. Lara was too much like Mayweather with his fighting style, and it’s very likely that he would have exposed the flat-footed Canelo in the same way that Mayweather did, even with a 20 lb weight advantage over Lara. The tactic that Lara used to try and get a fight against Canelo might have worked if he were using it against a guy like Julio Cesar Chavez Jr., but he struck out big time against Canelo, who picks and chooses who he wants to fight.

On My 2nd, Lara will get his chance to prove how good he is by beating Smith. This is a decent fight Lara, and he’ll show his talent off the day before Mayweather faces Marcos Maidana. Hopefully, with a win over Smith, Lara can get a decent opponent for his next fight. He already easily beat Austin Trout last December by a lopsided 12 round unanimous decision. For those who may have forgot, Trout fought Canelo to a standstill in losing to him by a 12 round decision last year in April. The fight was more like a draw than a win for Canelo, and it was definitely not impressive stuff from Canelo. The fact that Lara totally dominated a fighter that Canelo struggled so badly against suggests that Lara might be better than Canelo. That would help explain Canelo’s reluctance to fight him.



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