By Jeff Aranow: IBO/WBA World junior middleweight champion Erislandy “The American Dream” Lara (23-2-2, 13 KOs) wants to make a big impression on the boxing world when he defends his titles against former 154lb champion Yuri Foreman (34-2, 10 KOs) in less than two weeks from now on January 13 on PBC on Spike.
The Lara-Foreman fight will taking place at the Hialeah Park Racing and Casino in Miami, Florida. Lara wants a knockout over Foreman. You should hope that Lara can accomplish that task, because if he can’t, then it doesn’t say much about the Cuban fighter’s talent. Foreman was stopped in consecutive fights by Pawel Wolak and Miguel Cotto in 2010 and 2011.
Incidentally, those two fighters were the last time that Foreman fought quality opposition. Foreman has fought strictly lower level opponents only for the past four years. The fact that Lara has decided to fight a guy like Foreman doesn’t say much about him. Lara has already had his share of mismatches since he captured the WBA title in 2014.
Lara has beaten Delvin Rodriguez, Jan Zaveck and Vanes Martirosyan. Rodriguez and Zaveck had done little to be given title shots, but those were both voluntary defenses for Lara, as will be the case when he fights Foreman this month. Lara isn’t exactly going out of his way to fight the best guys on the board when making his voluntary defenses. The boxing fans would have liked to have seen Lara fighting guys like Erickson Lubin, Charles Hatley, Jermell Charlo, Julian Williams and Demetrius Andrade.
This is what you call a ‘showcase fight’ for the soon to be 34-year-old southpaw Lara. #12 WBA Foreman has little punching power to speak of, and he’s done nothing since returning to the sport in 2015 after being out of the ring for two years. Foreman’s last significant win over a quality opponent took place eight years ago when he beat Daniel Santos by a 12 round unanimous decision in 2009.
Still, the World Boxing Association decided to rank Foreman in their top 10 based off his wins over Jason Davis (13-11-2) and Lenwood Dozier (9-9-1). It doesn’t quite make sense for a fighter with so little to show for on his resume being ranked in the top 10 by the WBA above busier fighters like Erickson Lubin.
“On fight night, I’m making another statement and going for the knockout,” said Lara. “After this fight, it’s time to unify the division, then move up to win the middleweight titles!”
It should be interesting to see how Lara does against an aging fighter like the 36-year-old Foreman. It’s a bad match-up on paper due to Foreman not having done anything with his career for so many years. Foreman was never a power puncher to begin with. He was one of those fighters that won his fights with finesse. Foreman has stopped two out of his last three opponents he’s faced, but those were lower ranked fighters in Jason Davis and Johnny Javier Gomez.
Foreman hasn’t knocked out a quality fighter during his entire 15-year pro career. There’s not one knockout win over a really good fighter. I don’t expect him to start now.
Lara will likely get his knockout win over Foreman, but it’s not going to say much other than he’s still continuing to pick out weaker, older fighters rather than the good opposition to fight. Jan Zaveck was 39 when Lara fought him, and Delvin Rodriguez in his early 30s, and not the fighter that he’d been many years ago.
Adrien Broner not overlooking Adrian Granados
#4 WBC light welterweight contender Adrien “The Problem” Broner (32-2, 24 KOs) has a potentially difficult fight on his hands next month against #4 WBA Adrian Granados (18-4-2, 12 KOs) on February 18 at the U.S Bank Arena in Cincinnati, Ohio.
Broner, 27, could be fighting for a world title if he wished against WBA light welterweight champion Ricky Burns, but instead he chose to fight Granados. You can only hope for Broner’s sake he doesn’t lose to Granados, because it might wipe out what’s left of his once promising boxing career.
Broner already lost to Shawn Porter in 2015 and Marcos Maidana in 2013. Broner did bounce back from his loss to Porter to defeat Khabib Allakhverdiev to win the vacant WBA World light welterweight title in October 2015. Broner lost his WBA title in his last fight when he failed to make weight against Ashley Theophane in April 2016.
Broner still won the fight by a 9th round knockout. That was soft match-making for Broner, as the 35-year-old Theophane had done nothing to rate a world title shot. Theophane is one of Floyd Mayweather Jr’s fighters in his stable, so it made sense for Broner to give him a title shot.
Broner said this to Fighthype.com about his fight against Granados:
“I ain’t never met the man,” said Broner about Granados. “I just know he’s a hell of a fighter. He just came off of a fantastic, electrifying win against a great prospect [Amir Imam], and he went out there and stopped him. I want to congratulate him on that. I know he’s not going to come to lay down. He’s going to come to fight, but I’ll be ready. He really ain’t got nothing to lose. He’s really fighting for the opportunity to be where I am. So that’s why he’s very dangerous. As I said before, he can fight. So I know this is not going to be a walk in the park. No fight is. I don’t care how easy I make it look or how easy it makes it look from the outside, but not fight is easy,” said Broner.
Broner is kidding himself if he thinks he always makes it look easy in his fights. He struggles even when winning. The only time he doesn’t struggle is when he’s in with guys that are hopelessly outclassed like John Molina Jr., Allakhverdiev and Theophane. Those are not great fighters.
Granados has a recent win over the highly ranked contender Amir Imam in November 2015. Granados stopped Imam in the 8th round. However, Granados failed to capitalize on that win in 2016, as he only fought once during the year in defeating journeyman Ariel Vasquez (12-15-2) by an eight round unanimous decision.