By Joseph Rodriguez
In a sport dominated by the dollar it’s not often a revenue generating marquee fighter will risk a loss without a reward. Canelo Alvarez could have made the same amount of money Saturday night fighting anyone but he selected Erislandy Lara citing his desire to fight the best competition period.
It’s not as if the fight just came to Lara, he constantly applied pressure via social media and even crashed Canelo’s post Angulofight press conference to present his challenge.
Fighters are as risk averse as all people, an increase in risk must be compensated with an increase in return. Saturday night’s match up between Alvarez and Lara stands as an objection to this rule.The top two fighters in the 154 lb. fighter will square off to establish division supremacy. Although Floyd Mayweather is a current titleholder in the division, he has since moved down to the Welterweight division and is unlikely to move back to defend his title. It will be interesting to see a how Canelo’s punching power and pressure will fare against Lara’s elusiveness and speed.
Canelo has stated “There’s no doubt, I’ll be the one who makes the fight. He’ll be backing up looking to counter punch me. There’s no doubt that I’m going to be the one who makes the fight, and that’s what we prepared for.”
With two contrasting styles something will eventually have to give, I just hope the give is toward an explosive action filled fight as opposed to acounter punching chess match.
Prediction:
Lara will start off strong counter punching behind his straight right while Canelo will invest early in to the body. Toward the mid rounds Canelo will apply effective pressure choosing to throw in combination, forcing Lara to engage more than he would like to. This end result will be a 9th rd. TKO victory for Canelo.
Honor & Glory Fight Card
TV lineup for the Golden Boy Promotions card Saturday night (Showtime PPV, 9 ET) at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas:
• Main Event: Junior middleweights: Canelo Alvarez (43-1-1, 31 KOs) vs. Erislandy Lara (19-1-2, 12 KOs), 12 rounds
•Co-Main Event: Featherweights: Abner Mares (26-1-1, 14 KOs) vs. Jonathan Oquendo (24-3, 16 KOs), 10 rounds
• Junior lightweights: Juan Manuel Lopez (34-3, 31 KOs) vs. Francisco Vargas (19-0-1, 13 KOs), 10 rounds
• Junior welterweights Johan Perez (19-1-1, 13 KOs) vs. Mauricio Herrera (20-4, 7 KOs), 12 rounds, for Perez’s interim title
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