This past Saturday night, ‘The American Dream’ Erislandy Lara showed the boxing world once again why is one of the best fighters in boxing. He used his perfect straight left hands to knock out Thomas ‘Cornflake’ LaManna in the 1st round. Lara was awarded the 1st round KO victory. With the win, Lara captured the vacant WBA (Regular) middleweight title.
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Lara is now a 2-division world champion. Is Erislandy Lara a hall of fame fighter? In his professional boxing career, Lara lost 3 fights with 3 draws. All of his losses and draws ended in controversy. While the controversial draws do not count as losses, let’s dissect his professional boxing losses. Lara’s first professional boxing loss was to Paul ‘The Punisher’ Williams.
Heading into the fight against Lara, Williams was coming off a 2nd round KO loss to ‘Maravilla’ Sergio Martinez. The Williams vs. Martinez fight was at middleweight. After the loss to Martinez, Williams moved back down to junior middleweight to take on Erislandy Lara in what was supposed to be a get right fight for him.
In the Williams vs. Lara fight, Lara caught Williams with so many accurate straight left hands. He also controlled the pace of the fight to the surprise of boxing fans. It was clear at the end of 12 rounds that Lara was heading to handing Paul Williams his second consecutive loss, right? Wrong. When the fight went to the judges’ scorecards, it was ‘The Punisher’ Paul Williams who escaped with the controversial 12th round majority decision victory.
Most boxing fans felt that Lara did enough to win that fight. Lara’s second professional boxing loss came to Canelo Alvarez. Heading into the fight with Lara, Canelo was coming off a spectacular 10th round stoppage of ‘The Dog’ Alfredo Angulo. In the Canelo vs. Lara fight, Lara used his great movement and boxing skills to give Canelo fits.
After 12 rounds that fight went to the judges’ scorecards and Canelo Alvarez escaped with the controversial 12th round split-decision victory. There were a lot of boxing fans who felt that Lara did enough to win that fight. With that being said, heading into his fight with Jarrett ‘Swift’ Hurd, you could argue that Hurd was facing an undefeated fighter given how close Lara’s losses were against Williams and Canelo.
In Lara’s fight with Jarrett Hurd, he bravely stood in front of the bigger, stronger Hurd and outboxed him for 12 rounds.
It was Hurd, however, who scored the knockdown on Lara in round 12 that sealed the controversial split-decision victory for him. You can argue that Lara outboxed Hurd and stacked up a lot of the early rounds to win that fight despite the knockdown in the 12th round.
Nevertheless, out of all of Lara’s 3 professional boxing losses, the loss to Hurd was the least controversial of the 3 losses. Lara has great wins over a lot of gamed fighters such as ‘The Dog’ Alfredo Angulo, Austin ‘No Doubt’ Trout, and ‘The Nightmare’ Vanes Martirosyan. Lara, however, was robbed of a couple of fights that would have put him through the stratosphere.
Those fights are against Paul Williams and Canelo Alvarez. You can argue that those losses were a result of Williams and Canelo getting “A-Side” cooking from the judges. Lara did enough to win both of those fights in a lot of boxing experts and fans’ eyes.
The book is still open for the crafty veteran Lara. With that being said, when Lara finally decides to hang up the boxing gloves for good, will he be considered as a hall of fame fighter? Check out Potshot Boxing (PSB) latest boxing poll and vote. Also, leave a comment at the bottom of this post.
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