(Photo credit: Esther Lin/Showtime) By Dan Ambrose: Golden Boy Promotions president Oscar De La Hoya has ruled out any chance of a rematch taking place between Cuban Erislandy Lara (19-2-2, 12 KO’s) and De La Hoya’s fighter Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (44-1-1, 31 KO’s) after Canelo dodged a bullet tonight in beat Lara by a 12 round split decision at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada.
De La Hoya took the crowd approval of the final judges’ scores as a mandate that boxing fans don’t want to see a rematch between the two fighters.
De La Hoya said “What I heard from everyone is that no one wants a rematch, there’s ten guys waiting in line. Lara has to wait in line. Canelo won tonight and now we have to move on.”
That’s obviously disappointing news for Lara, who feels that he did more than enough to deserve the decision tonight. Lara said he wants a rematch, but it looks like De La Hoya has other ideas for his fighter Canelo and doesn’t want to take the chance of a second fight.
De Hoya will no doubt try and put together a fight between Canelo and Miguel Cotto for next May on Cinco de Mayo or Canelo vs. Floyd Mayweather Jr. Those two guys – Mayweather and Cotto – are going to be the top two choices for Canelo. Mayweather brings more money to the table in terms of his ability to attract a ton of pay-per-view buys, but it might still be a little too early for a Canelo-Mayweather rematch, especially given tonight’s unimpressive decision by Canelo.
For a rematch between Canelo and Mayweather to work, Canelo needs to win by a non-controversial decision over Cotto or preferably by a knockout. Frankly, I’m not sure that Canelo could beat Cotto after watching how he looked tonight. Cotto is definitely the bigger puncher of the two and the better body puncher.
One judge scored it 115-113 for Lara, and the other two scored the fight 115-113 and 117-111 for Canelo.
“I did my job. It was a disgrace what happened to me,” Lara said. “I showed I was better than him. He knows he lost in his heart. What can I say? I want a rematch.”
You’ve got to give Lara a pat on the back for coming into Las Vegas and fighting his heart out in front of a huge pro-Canelo crowd. The crowd cheered every punch Canelo threw in the fight, even the ones that missed by a mile. Being up against something like that had to have been difficult for Lara.
“He said he was gonna take me to school,”Canelo said. “I don’t think anyone wants to go to that school…I just wanna say that I’m always going to take the best fights.”
Well, if Canelo is going to take the best fights then he needs to go the head of the class and face WBA middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin, because that is the best fight. If Canelo is just interested in the fight that makes the most money at 160, then Cotto is the guy. But he’s more of a paper champion.
The champion that most hardcore boxing fans see as the best fighter in the middleweight is Golovkin. But I kind of doubt that Canelo will ever agree to fight Golovkin because this guys is taller, stronger, better defensively and the far superior fighter.
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