(Photo credit: Esther Lin/Showtime) Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez (43-1-1, 31KO’s) must be commended for taking this fight with Erislandy Lara (19-1-2, 12KO’s). Lara, the Cuban defector, is as slick a southpaw as there is and stylistically looks to be a nightmare for the 23 year old Canelo who is looking to maintain the momentum he gained against Alfredo Angulo in March earlier this year.
Lara is himself coming off a convincing display against fellow left-hander Austin Trout in December 2013. Both Trout and Angulo are common opponents of Canelo and Lara, so we have two instances where they are directly comparable.
Canelo took on Trout in April 2013 for the WBC and WBA light-middleweight titles. That, much like the upcoming bout with Lara was a risky assignment. Trout is an athletic southpaw who is hard to pin down and establish a rhythm against, and he was also fresh of a dominant win over Miguel Cotto seven months earlier so was on good form. It was an awkward night for Canelo, who had to deal with constant jabs to the body and head as Trout tried to slide in and out of punching range. He looked to counter-punch and was largely successful when he chose to be pro-active and showed good power when he landed. He even handed Trout the first knockdown of his career in the first twenty seconds of the seventh round. Trout was by far the busier fighter, but was made to miss a lot even when Canelo was taking time off in the rounds, as he showed good head and upper-body movement to evade the attacks. In the end it was a close fought contest that Canelo just edged on two of the judges scorecards; 116-111, 115-112 and 118-109 (that last one was peculiar). The knockdown in the seventh proved to be decisive.
Lara on the other hand dominated the big Texan. He cruised to landslide points decision (118-109, 117-110, 117-110) and also knocked Trout down, this time in the eleventh. Lara was just the slicker boxer here, staying on the periphery of Trout’s reach and launching in and out very impressively when he sighted an opportunity. He was not discouraged by the boos that often rang out around the arena and his patience was one of his keys to victory, as Trout was unwilling to wait as long and tried to force his work a lot of the time, often trying to adopt the alien role of the stalker.
If Canelo struggled somewhat with Trout, he crushed Alfredo Angulo. Referee Tony weeks chose to step in and halt that action in the tenth round after one clean punch too many. Angulo was fierce in his protestations at the call but it was probably the right call. Canelo was teeing off on him for the entirety of the fight. Granted, Angulo’s come-forward and aggressive style is perfect in order to showcase Canelo, but he still looked impressive. His shots detonated when they landed and they landed often. He threw combinations to the head and body displaying good variation while the head movement was there again, this time even more pronounced as Angulo struggled to land clean all night. It must be said Angulo did look like he was lacking something that night, his usual intensity and power were not there, and the relentless pressure he applied to Lara the fight before was nowhere to be seen.
In that fight, Lara came as close to a legitimate defeat as he has come so far in his career. His only official loss is a highly disputed decision against Paul Williams back in 2011, but here he nearly came unstuck for real. Angulo put him on the back foot from the off with a purposeful forward march and incessant hooks. He slipped and blocked rather well and showed little hesitancy in his pursuit. The marauding Mexican put Lara down in the fourth and ninth rounds and seemed in distracted from his goal. Despite these obstacles Lara boxed very well on the move, pausing for just a moment to rattle off sharp shots off his oncoming foe’s face at regular intervals.. He did so to the point where a large swelling around Angulo’s left eye-socket began to develop in the middle rounds, which became the target area for Lara as soon as it appeared. The eye deteriorated so badly that in the round following his second knockdown of Lara, Angulo turned his back on the action in the middle of an exchange forcing the referee to stop the fight. It was a bizarre ending, but the fight proved that Lara does not wilt easily under pressure, something that may come in handy on the 12th July.
That being said, Canelo is unlikely to bring the same type of pressure as Angulo did, as even against Mayweather he tried to counter-punch to some degree. Canelo much prefers this approach, and also throws punches at the same time as his opponent to great effect, much like light-welterweight king Danny Garcia though less spectacularly. The problem here is that he hasn’t come up against anybody with such superior footwork as Lara. He is so seamless when he moves across the mat, and this combined with his constant upper-body movement and ability to immediately close the distance means he has some formidable tools at his disposal. Lara is very good at controlling the pace of a fight, landing a jab or left hand before dancing away, walking around a few steps before resetting well out of harm’s way, where he will start all over again. For me, Canelo will need to be more aggressive than he is accustomed to, and not wait as long between offensive bursts as he did against Trout, as this is all the time Lara will need to chip away at him piece by piece. Lara has decent power too, so if he has enough success will do some serious damage.
This is probably the best fight to be made at this weight. Both men have very strong resumes with only the solitary defeat and it is refreshing to see the best fighting the best, especially when it didn’t really need to happen. On the whole, only boxing fans will have heard of Erislandy Lara despite his laudable skill set, while Canelo is riding a wave of public approval even after getting schooled in the biggest fight of his career. He should be congratulated for actively pushing for a fight that could well derail his course to become the next big name in boxing. Even though Lara initiated exchanges between the two by interrupting a Canelo vs Angulo press conference and throwing out barbs over social media sites, Canelo could have easily ignored them just as ‘Sugar’ Ray Leonard did Aron Pryor back in the eighties. He refused to use his sway as the cash-cow to duck his most able adversary, so for that we should be grateful.
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