By Dan Ambrose: WBA Super World junior middleweight champion Erislandy Lara (20-2-2, 12 KOs) will be facing #13 WBA fringe contender Delvin Rodriguez (28-7-4, 7 KOs) on June 12th next month in a fight on Spike TV from the UIC Pavilion, in Chicago, Illinois, USA.
Also on the card is unbeaten #5 WBA, #5 WBO, #7 WBC, #13 IBF light heavyweight knockout artist Artur Beterbiev (8-0, 8 KOs) fighting Doudou Ngumbu (34-6, 13 KOs) in a scheduled 12 round bout.
Lara, 32, is getting a voluntary defense of his World Boxing Association title out of the way in facing Rodriguez. This obviously isn’t a tough test for the Cuban Lara. His tough tests came in 2014 when he was arguably robbed in his fight against the popular Mexican fighter Saul “Canelo” Alvarez in July. Lara fought well enough to get the decision win over the red-haired Canelo, but two of the judges sided with Canelo.
Lara found out the hard way that it’s not easy to get a decision over Canelo. The chances of a rematch between the two fighters disappeared immediately after the fight when Canelo’s promoter Oscar De La Hoya informed the media that Lara would have to get in the long line of fighters looking to face Canelo. In other words, Lara had his chance and he missed out and likely wasn’t going to get another shot at beating Canelo.
In Lara’s last fight, he defeated Ishe Smith by a one-sided 12 round unanimous decision last December. Lara was too fast and too skillful for Smith to land anything substantial against him.
Rodriguez, 35, has struggled in the ring since 2013 with him losing to Miguel Cotto by a 3rd round knockout in October 2013, and then fighting to a disappointing 10 round draw against Joachim Alcine in May of 2014. That was supposed to have been a winnable fight for Rodriguez, but he found the hard way that the 39-year-old Alcine still has a little left in the tank.
The light heavyweight Beterbiev is quickly getting pushed up the rankings. At #5 WBA, Beterbiev is within striking distance of a title shot against either WBA champ Sergey Kovalev or the WBA regular belt holder Juergen Braehmer. A match between Beterbiev and Kovalev would be ideal, as Beterbiev defeated him while the two of them were in the amateur ranks fighting for Russia.
Beterbiev, 30, is coming off of a 4th round knockout victory over Gabriel Campillo last April in a very impressive performance from Beterbiev. At 30, Beterbiev needs to speed up his career because he doesn’t have a lot of time to burn up moving up the ranks slowly. Beterbiev spent a lot of time in the amateurs in fighting in the Olympics twice in 2008 and 2012. He failed to capture a major medal in both Olympics. But Beterbiev’s fighting style is more suited to the pro game, and probably should have gone pro back in 2008. If he’d done that, he would have been much further along with his pro career and likely would already have captured a world title by now.
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