By Erik Schmidt: Undefeated middleweight prospect Erislandy Lara (2-0, 1 KOs) obliterated his opponent Denis Alekseevs (5-22-2, 4 KOs) in the 1st round of a scheduled 4-round bout on Friday night at the , Kugelbake Halle, Cuxhaven, in Niedersachsen, Germany, knocking him down three times in the process. Lara, only 25, a former Cuban National champion and world champion, was all over his over-matched opponent in the first round, hitting him at will with uppercuts and hooks to the head. Within a matter of seconds, Alekseevs was knocked down with a powerful left to the head.
He got up, covering up with both hands glued to his head, and began taking big windmill shots from Lara. After a second, Lara was warned for throwing a rabbit punch by referee. As soon as the action resumed, he quickly sent Alekseevs down for the second time, this time with a right hook to the head.
He got up, his nose bleeding badly, and was promptly sent down for the third time with a big left hook to the head. At this point the referee stepped in and halted the fight at 2:19 of the 1st round. I don’t want to get ahead of myself any, but I think Lara looks good enough already to be a title holder in the division, maybe even good enough to beat Kelly Pavlik.
Lara looks to be the real deal, and better than other top middleweight prospects like Joe Greene and John Duddy by far. The punches that he was hitting Alekseevs with, and the angles he was using, was beyond imagination. He moves incredibly well for a middleweight, and is excellent at countering with a lot of power even when he seems to be out of position. He seems to have an uncanny ability to throw punches at angles, reminding me a lot of Naseem Hamed, only bigger with much more power. Although a mismatch like this makes it hard to tell how good a fighter like Lara really is, I could see enough of him to tell that he looks much better than any other middleweight in the division at this point other than perhaps Pavlik.
Lara is very advanced for an amateur fighter, which is probably a product of his long amateur background in Cuba. Alekseev, a journeyman fighter obviously, couldn’t even lay glove on Lara, and when he would attempt to land a shot, Lara would counter him every time with big shots. If I were to criticize anything about Lara’s performance, which is difficult to do because he fought a nearly perfect fight, I’d have to say his over eagerness.
He missed a few punches while trying to score a quick knockout and it caused him to throw too hard at times. It’s understandable, though, because he was trying hard to impress and no doubt wanted to end things in a dramatic fashion. As it turns out, he did. Alekseevs was being hit with some huge bombs from the first second of the round and I’m surprised that he was able to last as long as he without staying down, especially with his nose badly bloodied as it was.