Carlos Molina: I know I can beat Canelo and Lara

By Boxing News - 07/15/2014 - Comments

molina56By Dan Ambrose: IBF junior middleweight champion Carlos Molina (22-5-2, 6 KOs) was kind of the forgotten man last Saturday night when Erislandy Lara and Saul “Canelo” Alvarez went at it in a fight where many boxing fans assumed was a battle between the two best fighters in the 154 pound division. But don’t tell that to the 31-year-old Molina, as he feels he already beat Lara in their fight in 2011 which was ruled a 10 round draw.

Some fans feel that Molina did enough to deserve a win in that fight, although Lara did land the harder and cleaner landing shots like he did against Canelo last Saturday.

Molina would like a shot at either Lara or Canelo, and he thinks he’d beat both of them. Molina is currently scheduled to defend his IBF title on October 11th against #1 IBF Cornelius Bundrage (33-5, 19 KOs) Oasis Hotel Complex, in Cancun, Quintana Roo, Mexico. This will be Molina’s first title defense since winning his strap last year in beating Ishe Smith in September.

Molina said “Every time you see a fight in your weight class, you try to see how you would fight them and neither guy looked really spectacular. Give me the chance and I’ll do to Canelo what I did to Lara. I’m the true champion in this weight class. The media kept saying that Canelo and Lara was supposedly between the two best fighters at 154 lbs, like I’m not even there.

They’re trying to overlook me and not give me a chance. And after the way they both looked in there, I know I could beat both those guys. I already beat Lara, not officially, but in the eyes of most people who saw the fight.”

Molina’s problem is that he’s been inactive for a year now, and that obviously isn’t going to help him get big fights against either of those guys. The other problem is he doesn’t have much of a fan base, so there’s not a lot to gain for either of them to fight him other than winning his paper title.

Molina’s fighting style isn’t exactly crowd pleasing with the way he tends to jab and the immediately collapse inward for a clinch. That kind of style of difficult on the eyes, and it’s obviously hard to fight due to Molina only giving his opponents a brief moment to get their shots off before he comes plunging forward for a jab and clinch ritual.

With all the dangerous opponents out there for Canelo, I wouldn’t be surprised if Oscar De La Hoya chose to match him up against the light hitting Molina in order to give Canelo an easy paper belt to help validate him in the eyes of fans. Canelo kind of needs some building up right now after his highly controversial win over Lara last Saturday night. It’s possible that if Canelo can win Molina’s IBF strap some fans will forget the fiasco surrounding the judges’ scores for the Canelo-Lara fight.

I wouldn’t give Molina any chances of beating either Canelo or Lara. He’s too weak of a puncher, and he mostly just holds all night in his fights.



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