De La Hoya: We see things with Lara that Canelo can take advantage of

By Boxing News - 07/08/2014 - Comments

delahoya969By Dan Ambrose: Golden Boy Promotions president Oscar De La Hoya has been sounding more and more like the trainer of his franchise fighter Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (43-1-1, 31 KO’s) than the promoter for him as his fight date against Erislandy Lara (19-1-2, 12 KOs) draws nearer.

Canelo and Lara will be squaring off this Saturday night in a fight that could have huge ramifications for each of their careers.

De La Hoya says that they saw flaws in the game of Austin Trout that Canelo was able to take advantage of last year in his 12 round decision win over the American fighter. De La Hoya says they see equally significant flaws in the game of the Cuban Lara that they feel Canelo will be able to exploit on Saturday at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Canelo is obviously going to need to do a much better job of exploiting the flaws in Lara’s game than he did in the Trout and Floyd Mayweather Jr fights, because Canelo didn’t look good in either of those fights. If sitting on the ropes for the last 6 rounds against Trout is a case of Canelo taking advantage in the flaws in Trout’s game, then why did Canelo look red-faced and tired in the entire second half of the Trout fight?

De La Hoya said, “Yes, he’s very difficult and it’s a difficult style, it’s a tough test in front of him, but like we saw something with Austin Trout you always see something. With Erislandy Lara, you see things that obviously Canelo can do and take advantage of.”

The only thing that Canelo and De La Hoya hope for is that Lara will stand in one place for 12 rounds so that Canelo can land his heavier blows. That’s probably the only way that Canelo can shine in this fight, because he’s someone that needs to land a lot of punches to score a stoppage, and he does that against immobile fighters that stand and trade, or against guys that don’t move well enough to avoid him cutting off the ring on them. Canelo doesn’t do well against mobile fighters, and that could spell disaster for him if Lara doesn’t play along with what works for him.

Lara had problems in his win over Alfredo Angulo last year when he decided to stand in the pocket and fight his own style, but Lara still ended up stopping him in the 10th. De La Hoya said that he hopes Lara will stand and trade with Canelo like he did against Angulo, because he said he doesn’t want Lara to run. But the chances of Lara using the same fighting style for Canelo that he did in the Angulo fight are slim.

Lara’s trainer Ronnie Shields has already said that they’re going to use things that worked for Mayweather Jr in his win over Canelo in part of their game plan this Saturday night. You would have to believe that Lara won’t make things easy for the 23-year-old Canelo in this fight.



Comments are closed.