By Mauricio Carranza: Former WBA/WBC junior middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (43-1-1, 31 KO’s) is fighting WBA junior middleweight champion Erislandy Lara (19-1-2, 12 KO’s) On July 12th at the MGM Grand Casino and Hotel, which should be a good fight if things go well for the young Mexican fighter because let’s face it, Lara has a style that can sometimes put people to sleep.
Even though I believe that Lara can win by boxing and moving well, I think it would be better for boxing if Canelo wins, simply because Canelo seems to be the new Oscar De La Hoya.
Canelo has a fan friendly style, and he has the fan base (proven by the 350,000 PPV buys versus Alfredo Angulo last March, which Canelo carried the card by himself). He has the appeal, the nationality (Mexican) and apparently he has the determination to take tough, crowd pleasing fights. Now let’s go over the attributes for a moment that Oscar and Saul both possessed; Oscar was a good boxer, quick and strong with decent power, but he would get hit just enough to make for a good fight every time he was in one. Canelo seems to get hit a bit more but as long as he has the chin to keep up he can make for some very interesting fights.
The fan base thing is a bit more complicated because Canelo is a full Mexican fighter and De La Hoya was Mexican American, but regardless they both get the Mexican’s fan attention. It could be that they support Canelo because he is full Mexican or because Mexicans hate De La Hoya for beating the great Julio Cesar Chavez either way Mexicans buy PPVs and that’s what matters.
The last thing they have in common and the most important that makes me believe that Canelo can be the next De La Hoya, it’s the desire to fight the best of the best disregarding records and making for great fights. Maybe De La Hoya wasn’t the best boxer of his era but he was without a doubt the most entertaining one. He fought everyone and he put on some great fights which included Julio Cesar Chavez Sr., Felix Trinidad in his prime, Fernando Vargas in his prime, and Shane Mosley in his prime and the list goes on and on.
Now I know people are going to ask who has Canelo fought to be considered the new De La Hoya, and my answer is he will fight the best there is available starting by taking a fight with Lara, which I have to be honest I didn’t think GBP was going to make, because Lara can be so dangerous. But regardless of how fast or dangerous Lara can be Canelo asked for the fight, so for the future of boxing I can only hope that Canelo can be the next Oscar De La Hoya, we need someone who will take the though fights.
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