By Dan Ambrose: Erislandy Lara’s WBA junior middleweight title won’t be on the line for his fight against Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (43-1-1, 31 KO’s) on July 12th, according to Boxrec.com. Canelo has previously said that he wasn’t interested in fighting for Lara’s WBA title, because he feels that WBA Super World welterweight champion Floyd Mayweather Jr. is the real WBA 154lb champion, not Lara.
The World Boxing Association has two champions at 154, as well as at 112, 122, 126, 140, 168, and 175. It’s a way for the WBA to make more money in sanctioning feels by having multiple champions in the same weight classes.
The WBA’s title not being on the line won’t keep fans from looking forward to the Canelo-Lara fight, and seeing it as weeding out the pretenders in the division. If Canelo gets beaten by Lara as bad as he did by Mayweather last September, then boxing fans will have a good idea where Canelo stands in the pecking order in the junior middleweight division.
That probably won’t keep Canelo from still being a popular fighter, because he’ll still have a huge built in fan base that will support him. However, a loss for Canelo against Lara will force Golden Boy Promotions to make a decision about what to do with the red-haired fighter. They probably won’t be able to keep him at 154 any longer because it’ll be academic at that point that Canelo isn’t a top guy in the division. Canelo will probably have to move up to middleweight or preferably super middleweight to try and make something happen in those divisions.
Lara has the boxing skills to make Canelo look bad in this fight, and it wouldn’t surprise me at all if Canelo is whiffing at air with his heavy shots all night long, and turning red-faced in this fight. Lara is nearly impossible to hit when he’s focusing on his defense, and he’s very good at landing single shots the way Mayweather does. He’s also a southpaw, and that’s going to make Canelo’s job even tougher on July 12th when the two fighters face each other on Showtime from the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Canelo absolutely has to win this fight because he’s been fighting mostly welterweights during his career, and it’s a situation where he’d be fighting someone his own size for a change.
Comments are closed.