(Photo credit: Tom Casino/Showtime) By Dan Ambrose: During yesterday’s press conference in New York, Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (43-1-1, 31 KO’s) took issue with WBA junior middleweight champion Erislandy Lara (19-1-2, 12 KO’s) saying that he planned on giving the 23-year-old Canelo a boxing lesson and take him to Cuban school to teach him how to fight. Canelo got up upset, and saw it as yet another sign of disrespect from Lara. Canelo wants to be treated well by Lara, but he’s not getting that respect.
“He disrespected me. But not only me, he disrespected all Mexicans. For him to be saying that he’s going to give me a boxing lesson and he’s going to take me to school…that’s very disrespectful.”
It looks like Canelo is a little spoiled. In looking at many of Canelo’s past fights, he’s been treated really well by his opponents. Even in the build up to his fight against Floyd Mayweather Jr. last September, Mayweather took it easy on Canelo for the most part and was generally complimentary about him. For this reason it must be kid of a shock for Canelo to be facing a guy who isn’t scraping the ground in reverence of his skills, and who is telling it like he sees it about what he thinks of the red-haired Canelo’s talent. Hopefully, Canelo gets a grip and realizes that Lara isn’t going to be like the other guys he fought, as he’s not going to bow before him and waste time playing it nice by smothering Canelo with compliments.
“For the Mexican fans, we have a surprise for you July 12, Lara said. “I came from Cuba where I fought the best. I earned this in the ring, fighting the best in the division, not on a Mexican street corner.”
Lara has a lot more amateur experience than Canelo. Lara is a former highly decorated Cuban amateur star and 2005 world amateur champion at welterweight.
Canelo is facing a guy with a lot more talent than 99% of the fighters than he’s ever fought before, and it’s going to be a really tough fight for him to try and beat him. Canelo barely beat Austin Trout last year, and that’s a fighter that Lara gave a boxing lesson to last December in beating him by a one-sided 12 round decision. Just based on that fight, Canelo could be in trouble when he steps inside the ring with Lara on July 12th. It’s quite possible that Lara could do another Mayweather job on Canelo in exposing him again him as being a flat-footed fighter with stamina problems, and an inability to adapt to changing conditions in the ring.
Comments are closed.