By Gerardo Granados: Last Saturday at the Barclays Center, two solid title fights took place with super welter IBF Jarred Hurd, after being behind on the score cards early on, stopped Austin Trout in the 10th round, and super welter WBC Jermell Charlo demolished Erickson Lubin in the first round by a knock out of the year nominee.
In the main event, a sordid boring boxing match made fight fans leave their seats, when WBA Super World junior middleweight champion Erislandy Lara once again wasted his chance to shine in the spotlight. Only a minimal amount of fight fans might have enjoyed seeing Lara`s lack of killer instinct cruise to a unanimous decision win against contender Terrell Gausha.
Yesterday I read an article in which the author praised Lara and upset fight fans that enjoy a bloody epic battle. For him only the hard core boxing fans like and are able to understand the so called sweet science, but this author is wrong. Not even the boxing purist can enjoy Lara´s boring fighting style.
The Lara vs. Gausha punching stats was ludicrous for any title bout; Lara landed only 121 of 528 and Gausha 77 of 329 through 12 rounds. Even if this was a preliminary bout buried deep in the undercard, this would have been an insult for those who paid to watch.
To speculate, to not take any risks, to focus only on defense and to counter punch, and mostly to absolutely to not to care about the fans booing hard at you, only can mean that you either don’t care or that you don’t understand how professional boxing – prize fighting works.
Let’s say that Real Madrid and Barcelona instead of playing as they always do, that these teams would just focus only playing it safe and to counter strike for 90 minutes, to not propose the game and to just wait for an opponent mistake when he tries to break a tight defensive 1-5-5-0 formation. Would fans still fill the Santiago Bernabeu or the Nou Camp? Would fans still pay cable football package extra fee? Or would fans still buy the teams shirts?
I refuse to give nationalities to the boxers and Lara being Cuban has nothing to do with him being boring. Past Cuban boxers were slick and skilled and still it was fun to watch them fight. Lara never made the transition from amateur to a professional fighter. Even worse, nowadays due major changes in the amateur scoring system, not even the amateurs keep on fighting as Lara does now.
It is a fact that the so called sweet science came after, in the beginning boxing was so violent and brutal that it is what brought fans interest. No, it was not running pot shooting, hugging what brought fans interest. Bare knuckle fighting is a reminiscent of the prize fighting essence. It has been that way since its beginning and to deny it is useless because it is also a fact that we human beings enjoy violence.
When you come to America you must adapt to this way of life, if you come to America to full fill the American dream then you must do it the American way and better understand that here the customer is always right. We fight fans want to be entertained, to relax and to forget about work, politics and all the craziness around the world but not to be bored to the point to leave the arena or switch the channels.
I told to a friend that Lara was a Diva who thinks that what he does is a special sophisticated art, that the ones who don’t appreciate him don’t know the boxing so called sweet science. Lara is like that painter who thinks that his art is worth millions but no one ever shows up to see his art and even less to buy it.
Does Lara truly believe that Showtime will have him again at the main event? I am certain that the main event belongs to the real fighters, those who might not be as skilled but that do have the heart and hunger, and also that do care to entertain fight fans.
I think that Erislandy Lara American dream died last Saturday night. But what about the reader, do you agree?