By Dan Ambrose: Boxing fans just finished seeing Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (43-1-1, 31 KO’s) get clowned badly by Floyd Mayweather Jr. last September in a fight that was totally one-sided from start to finish. Now after taking an easy fight against Alfredo Angulo, which really wasn’t what you would call a real fight, Canelo is stepping it up against the Mayweather-esque WBA light middleweight champion Erislandy Lara (19-1-2, 12 KO’s) on July 12th at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada.
What we’re basically talking about here is a second clowning for the red-haired Canelo. Unless Lara magically loses his talent, speed, defensive skills and power overnight the way that Angulo lost his power for his fight against Canelo, we’re probably looking at another loss for the 23-year-old Canelo. If nothing else, you’ve got to give Canelo credit for taking the fight, but it’s still probably a really stupid move for him to do this. We saw Canelo’s upper talent limit when he faced Austin Trout last year in April.
Canelo was essentially fought a standstill in that fight, and he was lucky that the three judges that were appointed to score the fight had him winning because it was pretty much a 12 round draw. Even Floyd Mayweather Jr. said he saw it as an even fight. That was Canelo with his foot to the floor with his talent maxed out to the extreme, and yet he still couldn’t conclusively beat Trout.
Lara fought the same Trout last December and beat him like an old rug in winning by lopsided 12 round unanimous decision by the scores of 118-109, 117-110, and 117-110. There was absolutely nothing close about this fight whatsoever. Lara beat Trout with ease, and made him look like he didn’t belong in the same ring with him.
After Canelo’s loss to Mayweather, his boxing fans said that Canelo didn’t really lose anything due to how great Mayweather was. They said that a loss to Mayweather is nothing for any fighter to be ashamed of, and I agree with that 100 percent. However, if Canelo gets beaten by Lara on July 12th, then fans are going to need to face the facts that Canelo isn’t the next guy to take over after Mayweather retires from the sport. That person will be Lara, not Canelo. I don’t expect Canelo to try and avenge the loss to Lara, and he’ll likely be put back in with more Angulo type fighters to build him back up and get his fans back on the Canelo express. But what I want to see is whether Canelo’s fights will still be on PPV after that, and if he’s still be hyped as the guy to take over for Mayweather.
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