This is a recap of last night’s controversial junior middleweight fight between Canelo Alvarez and Erislandy Lara!!
The MGM Grand Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas was the site of another electric Pay-Per-View. The main event featured “The New Golden Boy” Canelo Alvarez and the dangerous and elusive Erislandy “The American Dream” Lara.
Going into the fight, both of these guys did a lot of trash talking leading up to the fight, so the MGM Grand crowd was eager in anticipation for this showdown between Canelo and Lara to get started.
This fight started off well for Lara as he used his jab and elusiveness to move away from Canelo’s aggressive attack. Lara would continue to move and counter Canelo for rounds 2 and 3. Lara moved so well between rounds 1 and 3 that Canelo literally picked Lara up in the air to stop him from moving. Now I am not sure if Canelo was frustrated or simply trying to send a message to Lara to stand and fight.
Canelo stalked Lara the entire fight and did a good job attacking Lara’s body which proved to be the one key in the fight that changed the fight in Canelo’s favor. By the end of round 5, Lara was clearly doing the better boxing of the two, but Canelo was killing Lara’s body.
In round 6, Lara did more boxing, but he was backing up a little too much to the chagrin of the judges. He simply was not outworking Canelo in a lot of the middle rounds in this fight.
In round 7, Lara got cut over his right eye which came at a bad time because Canelo’s good body work on Lara seemed to start slowing him down. Canelo’s game plan to the body would continue in rounds 8 and 9. Lara still did some great boxing in the midst of being cut and beaten to the body.
Finally… An Easy Way to Lose Weight
Rounds 10 and 11 could have gone either way as again, Lara was boxing Canelo well, but Canelo continued to hammer Lara with body shots. By round 12, the fight was still up in the air. It simply boiled down to what the judges like, boxing or aggression. Lara finished the 12th strong by throwing multiple combinations that landed on Canelo. Canelo finished the fight just like he started by chasing Lara down and destroying his body.
The fight would go to the scorecards. Two judges score the bout 115-113, and the other judge scored it 117-111. Canelo Alvarez was awarded the controversial 12 round split-decision victory.
Conclusion
The judge that scored that fight 117-111 caused controversy among the boxing world which put a damper on such a great performance by Canelo and Lara. In saying this, however, this is an example of how a lot of these rounds were closer than we thought Boxing World. I personally believe that Lara’s boxing won the night, but there were some points in the fight were Lara looked like he was running instead of boxing, and that could have cost him the fight.
This was a very tough fight to score for the judges so you really cannot be mad with the decision. I was upset with the judge who scored the fight 117-111, but he could have been scoring those rounds for Canelo when Lara seemed to be running instead of boxing. Both of these fighters deserve to win the fight.
Again, I feel that Lara did enough late in the fight to win, but Lara could he been punished by two of the judges in the end for lack of production and fighting backing up.
I would love to see these two get it on again in a rematch!!
