By Dan Ambrose: #1 WBC Erislandy Lara (17-1-1, 11 KO’s) is hoping that WBC junior middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez does the honorable thing and decides to face him without vacating his belt after Lara defeats #2 WBC Vanes Martirosyan (32-0, 20 KO’s) on November 10th at the Wynn Resort, in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Lara said to Eastsideboxing.com “I don’t want Canelo to vacate the title. I want to defeat Canelo to become the WBC Champion after I beat Vanes on November 10th. I want to win my title the right way, so I expect Canelo and the WBC to be true to their word and fight me after I’m victorious.”

I don’t know that Canelo Alvarez will vacate his title, but I can see him dragging it out until 2014 by fighting optional defenses, getting permission by the World Boxing Council to bypass Lara and also by fighting unification bouts against lesser threats than Lara. At the minimum, I see Lara having to wait until 2014 for him to get his title shot against Alvarez.

I can also see Golden Boy having Alvarez vacate his WBC title rather than putting him in a dangerous fight that could lead to a loss for him. In that case, Golden Boy would have Alvarez go after the IBF champion Cornelius Bundrage or WBA champion Austin Trout, Floyd Mayweather Jr. or Zaurbek Baysangurov.

Lara has to first get past Martirosyan before he can get to Alvarez and that’s going to be a tough fight because Martirosyan has power. Lara can punch too, but Martirosyan is a little more versatile because he was previously a slugger until hooking up with trainer Freddie Roach, who has changed him more into a boxer/slugger with the tilt more on the boxing side. Lara is going to have to take the fight to Martirosyan if he wants to win this fight because he’s not going to beat him by pot shotting him. Lara will have to get into the trenches to win.

Lara’s one loss on his resume came to Paul Williams last year in July. Lara appeared to win that fight by an easy 12 round decision, but the judges saw differently and scored it a 12 round majority decision win for Williams.

Martirosyan doesn’t really have any quality opponents on his resume. He’s been put in with nothing but 2nd tier opposition his entire career and that hasn’t helped him out. He’s been too carefully matched to the point where it’s taken his career into a huge stall until getting the Lara fight. The only question now is whether Martirosyan will be able to handle being put in with an excellent fighter like Lara all of a sudden.