Erislandy Lara wants Canelo or Cotto fights

By Boxing News - 11/26/2015 - Comments

lara000(Credit: Lucas Noonan/Premier Boxing Champions) By Dan Ambrose: It looks like WBA World junior middleweight champion Erislandy Lara (22-2-2, 13 KOs) will be sticking it out at 154 unless he gets one of the big names from the middleweight division to face him. Lara says he wants fights against Miguel Cotto and Saul “Canelo” Alvarez, and would be willing to move up to the 160lb division to make those fights happen.

Unfortunately, the 32-year-old Lara could be waiting for the rest of his career for those fights to happen, because neither of those fighters have mentioned Lara’s names recently. It’s not likely that Cotto and Canelo will bother fighting Lara at this point.

Canelo already fought him in beating him last year by a disputed 12 round split decision, and there’s not enough money in a rematch for Canelo to be tempted to take a second fight.

“I’ll face anyone they want to put in front of me at 154 lbs, unless it’s Canelo (Alvarez) or (Miguel) Cotto. Then we’ll go up to 160 lbs,” Lara said.

Lara defeated old war horse Jan Zaveck (35-4, 19 KOs) last night by a 3rd round TKO after Zaveck’s 39-year-old body suffered a shoulder injury that required the fight to be stopped at the Hialeah Park Race Track, in Hialeah, Florida, USA.

The fight was so one-sided that it was almost embarrassing to watch, and it clearly didn’t make Lara look good that he was fighting someone so slow, old, immobile and limited. It was not the kind of an opponent for Lara to tempt fighters like Cotto, Canelo or any of the top guys in the middleweight division to want to bother fighting him. When Lara’s adviser Al Haymon offered Zaveck as an opponent for him to fight, he should have realized that it wouldn’t be a big enough name to do anything to help him get the bigger fights that he wants. Zaveck was basically a repeat for Lara of Delvin Rodriguez.

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Lara did not advance his career by choosing to fight Zaveck, It was safe opponent for Lara. If Lara wanted to get the bigger names to show interest in fighting him, then he should have fought one of the Charlo brothers, Demetrius Andrade or Julian Williams.

Those guys are considered by many boxing fans to be the toughest of the 154lb fighters in the division. Why Lara isn’t fighting them is the big question. Besides those guys, Lara could be fighting the likes of Liam Smith, Cornelius Bundrage, Anthony Mundine, Vanes Martirosyan, Willie Nelson, and Joshua Clottey.

“I think I handled the pressure well tonight. I stayed in the pocket and fought my fight. This was a great win for me. (Zaveck) is a former champion and he’s never been knocked out until tonight,” Lara said.

It’s easy for Lara to brag about staying in the pocket against an old timer like Zaveck. He was fighting an old welterweight who’d seen better days in his career. It wasn’t a big deal that Lara was able to stay in the pocket against a small 154lb fighter like Zaveck because he didn’t have the punching power, size or the hand speed to give him a real fight.

Yes, Zaveck is a former 147lb champion years ago, but he was seen by many boxing fans as a paper champion because he beat Isaac Hlatshwayo to win the belt, and then defended the title successfully against these limited fighters Rodolfo Ezequiel Martinez, Rafal Jackiewicz and Paul Delgado before losing his IBF belt to Andre Berto in 2011.

Lara calls this a “great win” by him beating Zaveck, but it was nothing of the sort in my view. It was a victory over a poor opponent, who arguably didn’t deserve a world title shot.

“I hit (Zaveck) with a great shot to the chin and froze his whole body. He was complaining about pain in his ear and his leg, but the bottom line is I got the win,” Lara said.

It’s disappointing that Lara has done so little since his questionable loss to Canelo Alvarez in 2014. Lara had a lot of fans thinking that he was robbed in that fight, and he could have taken advantage of that popularity to take on some big names to prove that he’s a real talent in the 154lb division.

Instead, fans have seen Lara take his career backwards by fighting Ishe Smith, Delvin Rodriguez and Zaveck. Those were all very, very safe fights for Lara, and it makes you wonder whether he or his adviser believes he’s capable of beating the better fighters in the division.

The fights weren’t big enough to get the bigger names to fight him, and the only thing Lara accomplished was burning through two years of his career. He’s now two years older without having accomplished anything other than milking his WBA title.

Last night’s fight was televised on Premier Boxing Champions on ESPN. Here are the undercard results:

John Wesley Nofire TKO 4 Yasmany Consuegra
Daquan Arnett KO 1 Yudel Johnson
Emmanuel Rodriguez TKO 7 Eliecer Aquino
Jose Felix Quezada TKO 2 Daniel Lorenzana
Jeff Souffrant UD 4 Gregory Moore



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