All Access: Canelo vs. Lara episode 1 preview

By Boxing News - 06/25/2014 - Comments

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By Dan Ambrose: This Friday night, Showtime All Access will give an glimpse into the July 12th pay-per-view fight between WBA junior middleweight champion Erislandy Lara (19-1-2, 12 KO’s) and Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (43-1-1, 31 KO’s) in a premiere that begins at 9 p.m. ET/PT. The episode will highlight the 31-year-old Lara’s journey from being a star on the Cuban national team to his defection to the United States to turn pro. This will be episode 1 of the All Access: Canelo vs. Lara.

Lara and Canelo are training for their big PPV fight, titled “Honor and Glory,” as no titles will be on the line for the fight. Canelo didn’t want to fight for Lara’s WBA 154lb title, because the belt that Canelo wants is the one held by WBA Super World junior middleweight champion Floyd Mayweather Jr, who schooled the red-headed Canelo last September at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada.

The Canelo-Lara fight will take place at a catch-weight of 155 pounds, so technically this will be a middleweight bout and not a junior middleweight. Canelo had the same thing for his last PPV fight against Alfredo Angulo where both of them came in at 155. Canelo then rehydrated to 175 to fight Angulo as a light heavyweight the night of the fight. Despite Canelo’s increasing weight, he still feels that he’ll be able to make the junior middleweight limit for the next 2-3 years.

It’s interesting that he’s saying he doesn’t want to move up in weight, and yet he keeps fighting at 155, which is middleweight. There are a lot of reasons why it’s better for Canelo not to move up in weight to middleweight and one of the biggest reasons is Gennady Golovkin. It’s far safer for Canelo to stay at 154 where he’s a big fish in a small pond similar to how Julio Cesar Chavez Jr was a big fish in a small pound when he was dehydrating to get down to 160 to fight at middleweight.

Canelo won’t be doing himself any favors if he rehydrates to 175 for this fight against the speedy Lara, because this fight could turn out to be a duplicate of Canelo’s nightmare against Mayweather. Canelo lost the fight because of the speed and mobility of Mayweather, and he could very well lose this fight on July 12th due to the speed, mobility and southpaw stance of the highly skilled Lara. In some ways, Lara is a bigger version of Mayweather Jr, but a little younger and more powerful. Lara has the power to make Canelo miserable if he’s able to tee off on him the way that Mayweather did last year.



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