Erislandy Lara vs. Ishe Smith in the works for 12/12 on Showtime

By Boxing News - 10/31/2014 - Comments

lara665By Dan Ambrose: WBA World light middleweight champion Erislandy Lara (19-2-2, 12 KOs) is being talked about defending his title against former IBF 154 pound champion Ishe Smith (26-6, 12 KOs) in less than two months on December 12th in a fight that will be televised by Showtime Championship Boxing, according to Dan Rafael of ESPN.

There isn’t a venue for the Lara-Smith fight, but it could take place in San Antonio, Texas.

Lara is coming off of a controversial 12 round split decision to the popular Saul “Canelo” Alvarez last July. Lara fought defensively through most of the fight, and he did an excellent job of neutralizing Canelo’s offense to the point where he landed very few head shots.

Canelo was limited to throwing body shots, and much of them appeared to be blocked on the gloves of Lara.

After the fight, Lara attempted to get a rematch against Canelo, but Golden Boy Promotions President Oscar De La Hoya said that Lara needs to get in the back of the line if he wants to fight Canelo a second time. It’s unclear how long the line is to face Canelo. You would have to assume that it’s at least 6-10 fighters.

Smith, 36, lost his IBF 154lb title last year in September to Carlos Molina. Smith rebounded from that loss to defeat journeyman Ryan Davis by a 2nd round knockout last May.

Lara doesn’t have a lot of great options to fight given that the top names like Canelo, Miguel Cotto and Floyd Mayweather Jr aren’t going to say yes to a fight against him. Lara has expressed interest in fighting WBA Super World middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin, but there’s no interest from his side for a fight.

It could be that Lara’s tricky southpaw fighting style makes him one of the fighters who the top guys want to avoid. Lara is further hurt by him not having a huge fan base in the United States. If he had the kind of following that Cotto has then it wouldn’t be a problem for him to get the bigger names to face him.



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