The huge July 26th fight between Erislandy Lara and Saul Canelo Alvarez will be previewed this Friday, July 12th on Showtime ALL ACCESS at 9 p.m. ET/PT.
This is the first episode of the series which give fans a chance to see the two fighters before their big Showtime PPV fight on 7/26. For Canelo this is a must win if he’s to be the star of the future, because he was put in his place last year in his loss to Floyd Mayweather Jr.
After years of hype about Canelo, we saw him finally in the ring with an excellent fighter in Mayweather, and he failed badly. It wasn’t just that Canelo lost the fight, it was how he lost it. He failed to make any adjustments, and he, along his corner, looked lost. Lara is considered to be the 4th best fighter in the junior middleweight division by many boxing fans, behind Mayweather, Miguel Cotto and Canelo.
If Canelo can’t beat Lara, then he’s going to be seen as someone who is famous for how he looks rather than him winning. It would be like one of the tennis stars that gets huge money based on looks rather than winning. This is why it’s important that Canelo beats Lara and without controversy.
A victory for Canelo in this fight could set him up in a big money showdown with WBC middleweight champion Cotto in May of next year on Cinco de Mayo holiday. Bob Arum of Top Rank recently said that he’d like to stage the Cotto-Canelo fight on Cinco de Mayo weekend in 2015. But for that fight to happen, Canelo will need to beat Lara on July 26th, and perhaps one other fighter later this year.
Arum wants to match Cotto against Tim Bradley in December in an in house Top Rank fight. It’s not a great fight, but it’ll at least show how Cotto can deal with movement, because there is no way that Bradley is going to be crazy enough to stand in front of Cotto in this fight. He’s going to move for 12 rounds and likely make it ugly.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANnLTAm_Mvw
