By Allan Fox: In unquestionably the most boring fight of last Saturday night’s Showtime Boxing card, WBA Super World junior middleweight champion Erislandy “American Dream” Lara (25-2-2, 14 KOs) beat a very limited #6 WBA looking Terrell Gausha (20-1, 9 KOs) by a 12 round unanimous decision at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York.
In most of the round, the 34-year-old Cuban Lara did just enough to win and more than that. Lara looked like his single purpose was to win the fight doing the minimum, and he accomplished that. It was very boring to watch. Lara-Gausha should have been the first fight on the card rather than the main event. Lara and Gausha were badly out of place following the far more exciting fights between Jermell Charlo and Erickson Lubin and Jarrett Hurd vs. Austin Trout.
In a tripleheader of 3 junior middleweight championship bouts on Premier Boxing Champions on Showtime, Lara vs. Gausha underperformed badly. The fight was booed by the fans, and it had little in the way of excitement. Lara doesn’t seem to realize that he needs to fight in a more exciting matter for him to get the guys he wants to face, Saul Canelo Alvarez and Gennady “GGG” Golovkin, to fight him. Even if Lara eventually unifies the 154lb division, he’s not likely going to get a rematch against Canelo or a fight with GGG, because his style is so boring to watch. Lara is too technical, too safety first, and too lazy looking for him to rise up to be a star.
Jermell Charlo was the only really exciting fighter on last Saturday’s Showtime Boxing card in this writer’s opinion. Jarrett Hurd was the second best guy in the card, but he was too easy to hit and crude in his fighting style for him to be an exciting fighter. Jermell stood way above the pack on the Showtime card. In the future, Showtime needs to put him at the top spot in the main event and push Lara down to the opening fight where it won’t leave a bad taste in the mouth of the boxing fans to see a boring fight.
Lara knocked the 30-year-old Gausha down in round 4 with an uppercut. Other than that, it was largely single left hand pot shots thrown by Lara mixed in with a lot of clinches. In most rounds, Lara would throw a single or a double left hand and then grab Gausha in a clinch to keep him from firing back anything.
The judges scored the fight 116-111, 117-110 and 117-110. Boxing News 24 had Lara winning 12 rounds to 0. Gausha never came close to winning a round. In a world, Gaush looked inept. When the Lara vs. Gausha fight was first announced a couple of months ago, I had hopes that it would be a step up from the weak title challengers that Lara had been feasting on since he captured the WBA 154lb title in 2014. Lara had been milking his WBA title for the last 3 years against the likes of 40-year-old Jan Zaveck, 37-year-old Yuri Foreman, 39-year-old Ishe Smith, 37-year-old Delvin Rodriguez and Vanes Martirosyan. I thought that Gausha at least had some talent based on his unbeaten resume and his 2012 Olympic experience 5 years ago. But as soon as the fight started, it was clear that Gausha is not a top talent in the junior middleweight division compared to the far better fighters like Jermell Charlo, Jarrett Hurd, Erickson Lubin and Demtrius Andrade. Lara was hitting Gausha at will with shots, and making him look so bad. What Gausha needed was power for him to have had a chance to win the fight, but he was lacking in that. Gausha’s boxing skills were decent, but his power and hand speed were both average.
The crowd booed Lara and Gausha’s non-action filled fight from start to finish, letting the 2 fighters know that they were not pleased with how the fight looked more like a routine sparring match than an actual fight. Showtime dropped the ball big time in placing Lara-Gausha in the main event, as this was clearly an off TV type of fight. It was like watching the worst of Floyd Mayweather Jr. in a safety first fight, except that Lara doesn’t have the hand speed that Mayweather possessed.
”We want to give a lot of credit to Gausha,” said Lara. ”He’s an Olympian and he came to fight. I take the rhythm of the boxing match and that’s when I take over. He’s fighting with the best in the division. He’s not a stupid fighter, but he knew who he was facing today.”
I don’t think Lara is the best at 154. I think he’d lose to Charlo by a knockout. Lara struggles against fighters with power and ones that pressure him. Lara starts running and looking panicky when he’s pressured and hit hard, especially to the body. Alfredo Angulo knocked Lara down twice in their fight in 2013. That was a better version of Lara than what the boxing fans saw last night. Lara was 30-years-old in 2013 and he’s now slower and less mobile at 34. Angulo walked Lara down all night, throwing to the body and quickly exposing the Cuban fighter’s weakness.
Lara can’t take it to the body. Saul Canelo Alvarez exposed the same flaw in Lara’s game by hitting him with body shots in their fight in 2014. Canelo beat Lara by a 12 round split decision. While it was a controversial win for Canelo, he still exposed Lara’s vulnerability in taking body shots. Lara looked panicked after Canelo switched tactics early in the fight by targeting his body rather than his head. Canelo hadn’t been able to land head shots, so he started going to the body of Lara, and he found out that the Cuban fighter isn’t nearly as good at getting out of the way of those shots than he is at avoiding head shots.
“I’m ready to box anyone that comes my way,” said Lara. ”I’m the best boxer at 154 pounds and I won’t shy away from anyone that wants to fight me. I’ll box whoever, just line them up. I’m not afraid. I have proven that I’m a true champion. I’ll fight (Jermell) Charlo if I have to. We are friends, but business is business.”
If Showtime Boxing pushes Lara to fight Charlo next, I see him losing that fight by knockout. Charlo is too fast and too powerful for Lara. Even if Charlo misses, he’s going to follow his shots off with some huge punches that Lara is not going to be able to take. My guess is Showtime will look to have Lara or Charlo fight IBF junior middleweight champion Jarrett Hurd next instead of each other. Lara vs. Charlo will probably be saved for the final fight of this mini-Showtime junior middleweight tournament.
Hurd is a better fighter than Gausha, and he’ll make it interesting for Lara or Charlo. I take that back. Hurd would make it interesting fighting Lara, because he can take a punch and he throws good body shots when he wants to. For all intents and purposes, Hurd is like a younger, faster version of Alfredo Angulo. Like Angulo, Hurd is a walking punching bag with arms. Also similar to Angulo, Hurd has heavy hands, and he can generate a lot of punching power when throwing to the body. Hurd would be a good fight for Lara, as it would be competitive and he might even win if he can catch up to the Cuban fighter, who without a doubt will be running and holding for 12 rounds. Charlo would be a different story. He hits too hard and is too fast for Hurd. I could see that fight ending quickly with Hurd getting knocked unconscious by Charlo.
Charlo’s 1st round knockout win over Erickson “The Hammer” Lubin was the fight of the night last Saturday on Showtime Boxing at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn. Charlo knocked Lubin flat with a single right hand to the head late in round 1. The fight had to be stopped immediately at that point, as Lubin was badly hurt and unable to get up. After the fight was over, Lubin said he wanted to continue fighting. It was very strange that he didn’t seem to realize how hurt he was. It’s unclear whether Lubin was concussed or what, but he didn’t have the recollection of what had transpired in the ring. Of course, the referee Harvey Dock had to stop the fight immediately, since Lubin was on his side with both arms and legs sticking up in the air in a spasm that occurs when a fighter is knocked out. The referee couldn’t wait 20 seconds for Lubin to get it together to let him continue fighting. Even if Lubin could have gotten back to his feet and allowed to continue fighting, Charlo would have likely knocked him out with the first punch he threw. Lubin was out of it completely. It would have been good for Lubin’s handlers to take him out of the ring right away so that he could get checked out at a local hospital rather than spending time getting interviewed.