Canelo-Lara: Judging so important for tonight

By Gavin Duthie - 07/12/2014 - Comments

Canelo Alvarez(Photo credit: Esther Lin/Showtime) By Gav Duthie: The last thing boxing needs tonight is another controversial decision. Apart from the boxers themselves the three most important people in a fight like this are the judges. When Saul Alvarez 43-1-1 (31) fights Erislandy Lara 19-1-2 (12) it is highly likely that they will be needed. We would all like to think that the best fighter will win the fight but history tells us this is not often the case. 

Unfortunately in the murky world of boxing a fighters marketability often dictates who wins a close decision. The judges for the fight this evening are seasoned veterans Dave Moretti, Jerry Roth and Levi Martinez. These men have judged over 2000 fights between them and I am extremely hopeful that they will ensure the best man will win. 

Erislandy Lara

In the lead up to a big fight like this I like to watch some of the fighters recent action to make an informed decision on who I think will win. I remember Lara’s majority decision defeat to Paul Williams being controversial but watching it again I had to pick my jaw off the floor. Compubox states that Williams threw a staggering 1047 punches landing just 19% of them at 200. Lara threw 530 landing 224 a very respectable 42%. Lara even landed 49% of his power punches. Stats don’t always tell the full story and sometimes you can see why a judge scored it a certain way but in this one Williams seemed clueless with Lara’s style. It is encouraging to see that Donald Givens who scored the fight 116-114 in Williams favour never judged a fight again. 

Lara is a stylish, skilful fighter but he is not a huge puncher and being from Cuba he is not hugely marketable. If he were to beat Canelo he would be the outstanding candidate to fight Floyd Mayweather. I can’t see Floyd ever taking that fight because there wouldn’t be enough money in it. The cynic in me thinks that Canelo might get the nod as a result.  

Jerry Roth and Dave Moretti

After the C.J Ross controversy with Canelo v Mayweather and Bradley v Pacquaio 1 boxing needs to be seen as clean. Roth and Moretti often work together and are as good as they come. The biggest fight they most recently judged was Hopkins-Shumenov and they both scored it 116-111 in Hopkins favour whereas the other judge inexplicably had it 114-113 for Shumenov. Roth was also the only judge with sense in the first Pacquaio v Bradley fight as he gave Pac the nod. Both main hail from Nevada and seem to score fights quite similarly so whoever wins you can be pretty confident their scores won’t be far apart. 

Levi Martinez

He is also a pretty good judge. Looking through his resume with a fine tooth comb the only surprising decision I can see is that he had Lomachnko beating Salido. Other than that he is fairly good at what he does. Martinez hails from New Mexico which might be slightly worrying considering Canelo is also Mexican but he is highly respected and will be aware that he cannot let this cloud his judgement. 

Both fighters are highly accurate punchers so none of the judges are likely to be blinded by a high punch volume. I don’t really care who comes out on top of this one as long as the decision reflects the reality. All that we can ask for is may the best man win.



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