By Dan Ambrose: Showtime commentator Paulie Malignaggi says that he had Erislandy Lara (19-2-2, 12 KO’s) beating Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (44-1-1, 31 KOs) last Saturday night by a narrow 12 round decision, although he was okay with Canelo getting a narrow win because he saw it as a fight that could have gone either way due to the closeness of the fight.
Malignaggi thinks that Lara’s ring generalship was too much for the 23-year-old Canelo, and that he did a great job of keeping Canelo from landing his power shots in the by using range.
Malignaggi said on Showtime, “In rounds 5 and 6, he was running and running, and seemed to be slowing down. The problem is there’s 12 rounds in the fight, not 2. So in 5 and 6, we don’t give Lara the rounds. But then in the second third of the fight, maybe the last quarter of the fight, Lara picked it back up. There’s a difference in running and there’s a difference in boxing. Some rounds he [Lara] was running, and in some he was boxing. I felt that he boxed a little better than he ran, and I had him winning by 1 point by the end of the fight. But with 117-111, you’re missing everything Lara’s trying to do; you’re missing the footwork, all the boxing ability, you’re missing the ring generalship.”
Lara had an advantage in head shots in the fight by a 103 to 24 number, whereas Canelo out-landed Lara to the body 73-4. However, many of the punches that were scored as body shots by Canelo were actually shots that either missed or landed on Lara’s gloves. 73 number is highly inflated. In watching the fight on replay, I counted just 40 body punches from Canelo that actually landed to the body and weren’t hitting arms, gloves, and backside and below the belt.
“Lara was preventing Canelo from getting off by changing range, which is ring generalship. By changing range, Lara prevented Canelo from getting off that power. Canelo has a lot of power but there’s different ways to nullify it. One way is knowing how to change range. Canelo can’t throw a punch when he’s on the other side of the ring from you. So you change range, get in range and throw a 1-2, which is what Lara was doing. He’d step in and throw a solid 1-2 and then step back out in the rounds that he won; that’s what he did.”
Malignaggi sees Lara as having absolutely no chance whatsoever in getting a rematch against Canelo, saying “Come on, guys, let’s be real; Canelo is really going to give Lara a rematch. The rematch is not happening.”