Canelo grumbles about Lara not fighting him the way he wanted

By Boxing News - 07/20/2014 - Comments

canelo772566By Dan Ambrose: Last night on Showtime ALL ACCESS: Canelo vs. Lara epilogue, it was interesting to see former WBA/WBC junior middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (44-1-1, 31 KO’s) speaking about what he had accomplished last week in beating Erislandy Lara (19-2-2, 12 KO’s) by a highly contested 12 round split decision.

Instead of accepting responsibility for failing to adapt to Lara’s style, Canelo could only grumble afterwards, blaming Lara for not standing and fighting him in the way that he wanted to, and the way that he’d been accustomed to fighting his entire career.

Canelo was essentially blaming Lara for showing skills and mobility instead of being a stationary fighter in the mold of the guys that Golden Boy Promotions has been putting in the ring with Canelo for most of his career.

“I think respect is earned in the ring, and the way he fought, you can’t earn respect that way,” Canelo said. I did what I had to do. That’s no way to win a fight.”

Canelo’s trainer Chepo Reynoso then joined in to reassure a beaten looking Canelo, saying “No, a technical fighter moves his waist or sidesteps to make them miss. But running like that? If he throws a big punch and runs away, that’s defense? That’s not defense, stop bull [expletive]. He [Canelo] won, that’s all that matters. Maybe not how we wanted, but that son of a [expletive] didn’t come to fight.”

While Chepo and Canelo didn’t want to address the fact that the fight was basically an even fight in the minds of many boxing fans or even a victory for Lara, Canelo’s bother Ricardo Alvarez said “I was nervous, like ‘Dude, how are we doing?’ Then I remembered what Chepo says ‘You win fights by throwing bombs.’

Chepo said “That’s right, but not that guy.”

The fact that only Ricardo Alvarez was the only one willing to speak the obvious, that Canelo was in a fight that was an even fight, suggests that no one wanted to openly admit what really happened in the fight. Chepo was doing his best to whitewash what happened in the ring while building Canelo’s ego afterwards, as he looked very much like the beaten fighter rather than the winner.

Canelo appeared to be anything but confident looking after winning a decision like that. After all, he was in the ring with Lara, missing wildly with each punch, and seeming to be clueless with what to do against the talented Cuban fighter.

Canelo is going to need to realize that now that he’s fighting the higher quality fighters in the junior middleweight division from time to time, they’re not going to fight with their feet stuck in one place in the traditional manner than he’s been accustomed to while coming up the ranks. The fighters are going to move around the ring. Sugar Ray Robinson and Muhammad Ali both fought similar to the way that Lara fought Canelo, and they weren’t called runners.

Canelo is going to need to learn how to fight boxers, because right now he looks incapable of doing so. Floyd Mayweather Jr schooled him, Austin Trout arguably beat him and found himself on the losing end of a controversial decision, and now Lara also arguably beat him and lost a controversial decision as well.

It’s on Canelo for not being able to adapt to what Lara was doing in the ring. So instead of blaming Lara for not being a stationary fighter, Canelo needs to accept the reality of the situation that the best fighters in boxing are the ones that use their feet to move around the ring. The old fashioned fighters, the ones that don’t do as well and who don’t typically have long careers, are the stationary fighters that stand in one place to slug it out the way that Canelo likes to fight.



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