(Photo credit: Esther Lin/Showtime) In a fight that could have gone either way, the more popular Mexican fighter Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (44-1-1, 31 KO’s) defeated Erislandy Lara (19-2-2, 12 KO’s) by a 12 round split decision tonight in a fight that failed to raise the stock for either fighter at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada. The judges scored it 117-111 and 115-113 for Canelo, and 115-113 for Lara. I personally had Lara winning the fight 116-112. The 117-111 score by judge Levi Martinez from New Mexico was baffling to say the least.
Canelo got the win, but he missed all night long with the vast majority of his power shots. Lara was able to hit Canelo with with clean left hands pretty much every time he wanted to in the fight. The problem that Lara had was he didn’t let his hands go enough in the last 6 rounds of the fight, and this obviously led to two of the judges giving Canelo the victory.
Lara was understandably better after the fight, saying “I have no respect for him. I want a rematch. I’ll do the same and I’ll beat him. I felt like I won the fight 100 percent. I made him look bad in front of his own Mexican fans. I won the fight.”
De La Hoya said “What I heard from everyone is that no one wants a rematch, there’s ten guys waiting in line. Lara has to wait in line. Canelo won tonight and now we have to move on.”
While De La Hoya said that Lara can get in line, it’s highly unlikely that Canelo will ever fight him again during his career. With Canelo’s habit of fighting guys from the lower weight class, he’ll always be able to fight the top welterweights for many years to come after he exhausts the few junior middleweights in the division worth fighting. There’s really only Floyd Mayweather Jr, Lara, Austin Trout, Carlos Molina and Demetrius Andrade.
At best you could give Canelo a draw out of the fight because with the way that he was missing, he failed to establish that he was the better fighter tonight. What the two judges did that scored the fight for Canelo was give him rounds based on him coming forward and trying to make a fight of it, but not on effective aggression. There’s a difference. Canelo was coming forward and missing shots instead of coming forward and landing. When Canelo did land, more often than not he was hitting Lara low without the referee stopping the action to warn or take points off.
Other boxing results on the card:
Abner Mares UD 10 Jonathan Oquendo
Francisco Vargas TKO 3 Juan Manuel Lopez
Mauricio “El Maestro” Herrera MD 12 Johan Perez
Tomoki Kameda KO 7 Pungluang Sor Singyu
Jason Quigley TKO 1 Howard Reece
Enrique Quevado TKO 5 Yoandris Salinas
John Karl Sosa SD 6 Luis Bello
