Bob Smith predicts: Canelo will win UD over Lara

By Bob Smith - 07/05/2014 - Comments

canelo06By Bob Smith: Dear friends and readers of Boxing News 24: for the past 14 months, I have developed a respectable if not impressive track record of both boxing analysis and predictions.

Some of the highlights were my recognition of the bias against Klitschkos among American fans and commentators; predicting the rise of Gennady Golovkin in the middleweight division; predicting that Adrien Broner would defeat Paulie Malignaggi, but then find that the welterweight division was too difficult for him and that his power would not come up with him; that Floyd Mayweather Jr would totally dominate Saul “Canelo” Alvarez; and that Manny Pacquiao would clearly win the rematch with Tim Bradley.

On the negative side, I did think that Pacquiao would KO Bradley, while he merely clearly defeated him instead; I also really thought Sergio Martinez would KO Miguel Cotto. This last one was my biggest judgment error, and not only because of the weak and brittle knee, which was part of it; more than anything, I underestimated the inside game and power of Cotto, and the effect of his renewed confidence and skill due to the training of Roach and the timing and location of the fight.

Like for many boxing experts, this Canelo vs. Erislandy Lara match was a perplexing one for me, and for me is one of the most evenly matched major fights in years. Perhaps comparable fights between two very skilled fighters with different styles would be Lucas Matthyse vs. Danny Garcia, Nonito Donaire vs. Guillermo Rigondeaux, and Lamont Peterson vs. Amir Khan. In such close fights, a good rule of thumb is to favor the defensive fighter, as the art of boxing is more than anything else the art of hitting and not getting hit. So, for this reason, my initial inclination would be to favor Lara.

However, there are lots of other reasons to favor Lara: he is the better boxer; he has a far superior amateur background; he is a better conditioned athlete who can last for 12 rounds; he defeated the very difficult Paul Williams, who is better than any win on Canelo’s resume (names for Canelo maybe better, but he fought them on their decline); he has a wonderful Cuban amateur background; his personal story is impressive and he is a man of drive and hunger; he is a fighter in his prime, and Canelo is still relatively green; he is a southpaw; he has superior movement; he has power combined with speed and unorthodox angles, which can be deadly; he controls distance well, and so on.

Another really valid reason to pick him is that in a close contest between to roughly even fighters going in, typically the fighter with less popularity, flash and style wins: the fan base of the fighter tends to cloud the judgment of the boxing public, and to overemphasize his strengths and downplay his weaknesses – certainly in all three of the close fights I listed above the less flashy fighter won. This is another reason to favor Lara.

So, in light of all of this, especially when I myself have written articles that argue that Canelo is a hype job, and when I correctly predicted he would lose in a very one-sided way against Mayweather, would I pick Canelo to win? Was I swayed by his win over Angulo, or do I believe that he was not a hype job all along? Have I too been taken in by his propaganda? Actually, not really for any of these, for the win of Lara over Trout was definitely more impressive, and with win on Lara over Angulo was roughly equally dominant, at least in terms of inflicting damage. This again is another reason to favor Lara.

How then does Canelo have the edge over Lara in anything, other than fan base and hype? One edge obviously is power – though Lara is not a weak fighter, Canelo is built like a tank and does have the power edge. But he is not a mere slugger – he also has good ring IQ, speed and defense – in none of these is he greater than Lara by the way – but in all of them he is in the same league, which is a real accomplishment for a 23 year old tank. There are only two real areas that he does have the edge – first, he is a better combination puncher, with a greater variety of punches and a good sense of timing (though typically, he does require a stationary target for these); and second, he is a much better inside fighter. While I don’t expect Lara to spend too much time on the ropes, whenever the two of them are pounding it out on the inside or up close, Lara will clearly lose, and as Canelo works to the body, Lara’s movement will slow as the fight progresses. This then is the major reason I favor Canelo.

I still think that it will be a great fight, and that Lara will not only win some rounds but completely dominate those rounds and make Canelo look silly with his missed combinations. But I see Canelo being able to be effective in getting to the body some time in rounds 3-5, and then really backing Lara up after that, and throwing blistering combinations and hurting him regularly. I also don’t think that Lara has it in him to make a mid-fight adjustment to avoid the power punching of Canelo to the body.

So, this is my prediction. We will see what happens – it is one of the most even matches in recent memory, and though inclination and experience tells me to favor Lara, I think that the power of Canelo, along with his combinations, timing, and inside game will wear Lara down and let him land the harder shots at key intervals in the fight, which will in turn let him do enough to win a unanimous decision, perhaps like 116-112 or so.



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