(Photo credit: Paul Hernandez) By Dan Ambrose: WBA junior middleweight champion Erislandy Lara (19-1-2, 12 KO’s) is training hard with different sparring partners to get ready for his non-title defense against Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (43-1-1, 31 KOs) on July 12th at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada. Lara has worked every angle that the 23-year-old Canelo could possibly dream up for their fight, so he expects to be ready for whatever the red-haired fighter brings to the ring on that night. Lara is ready for Canelo’s plan A-Z, and he doesn’t see anything the fighter can do that will trouble him in this fight.
“My sparring partners are pushing me with numerous styles and I’m adapting to all of them comfortably,” Lara said. “I told them to come extra hard to prepare me for the pressure Canelo is going to bring. I feel great and my timing is right on.”
In Canelo’s past fights, he’s shown only two sides to his game and that’s to either come forward looking to slug, or retreat backwards to the ropes to use his jab and head movement. He’s not able to move around the ring due to his bulky 170+ pound frame. He’s coming forward or backing up, and that’s about the best you can expect from him. He can’t use angles, circle, jump in and out or use other tricks that better skilled fighters like Lara and Floyd Mayweather Jr typically use.
That’s not to say that Canelo isn’t effective in the two things that he does use. His size and power makes him very effective when he’s coming forward, as we saw in his fights against Alfredo Angulo and Josesito Lopez. And when he’s nursing a big lead, he can plant his back against the ropes to rest by just moving his head and jabbing.
Lara said, “I know Canelo is training hard for this fight, as am I, but unfortunately for him, there is nothing he can do to surprise me. He’s going to find out on July 12 that I’m the superior fighter. His insecurities as a fighter will surface on fight night — that I can guarantee.”
It is definitely going to be very difficult for Canelo tro try and compete with a fighter like Lara, because this is a Mayweather clone, only a bigger version of Mayweather, who is capable of using more movement than him due to his youth. Lara is highly mobile, lightning fast, and very powerful. When you throw in the fact that he’s a southpaw, it makes him very hard to beat for a flat-footed fighter like Canelo.
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