With the media and fans alike being almost evenly split to who they thought won the pay-per-view showdown between Saul “Canelo” Alvarez and Erislandy Lara this past Saturday at the MGM Grand Garden in Las Vegas, it understandable that Lara feels that he was robbed in the split decision loss.
Lara landed 107 total punches compared to Alvarez’s 97 and had a higher connect percentage landing 28 percent of his punches compared to Alvarez’s 23 percent.
Lara says he deserves a rematch immediately and sounded off in a press release sent out to media Wednesday.
“Before the decision was announced, I felt 100 percent confident I won the fight,” Lara said. “The facts don’t lie, I landed more total punches. Looking at it from the punch stats, you’re supposed score based on clean and effective blows landed.
“Most of the shots that Canelo landed were body blows that didn’t even land cleanly, and most of them came in the round where I got cut. All my punches were clean shots. I out jabbed him and boxed his ears off. The punch stats don’t lie…there is no way I lost to Canelo.”
With the bout being so close one of the biggest outrages of the night came from Judge Levi Martinez’s score of 117-111. The two other judges scored it the same 115-113 with Judge C.J. Ross giving Lara the edge and Judge Dave Moretti leaning in Canelo’s favor.
“I’m very disappointed in Judge Levi Martinez for his horrendous score. How in the world did he score it 117-111? Before the decision was announced, I stood across the ring and saw Team Canelo and their body language said it all,” Lara explained. “You could see the depression in their eyes. Everyone on their whole team had a look of despair because they were defeated. When the final score was read, their look went from despair to relief. They knew they lost the fight, period.”
With that questionable score, Lara thinks that Judge Martinez should face some kind of disciplinary action.
“Levi definitely needs to be investigated and he should never be appointed to judge a big fight again,” Lara said “I’m not sure if he’s dishonest or inept to be judging at this level, either way he needs to be reprimanded for this horrible decision.”
Fight Hub contacted the Nevada Athletic Commission Wednesday and was told that there would be no action taken against Judge Martinez and was told that there was no controversy.
Lara is no stranger to controversial decisions, as the first loss of his professional career came at the hads of the judges when they awarded Paul Williams a majority decision over Lara which landed the three judges in that bout suspensions.
This is the second time this has happened to me and I wouldn’t want to see this happen to someone else,” Lara stated. “Like what happen to the judges in New York in the Williams fight, Levi should be suspended. I left communist Cuba to escape corruption and now I see it happening here in the boxing world.”
At the post fight press conference Golden Boy Promotions president Oscar De La Hoya answered the question of a rematch by stating that Lara had his shot and was unsuccessful, so he had to work his way back up to another shot at Canelo.
“There is 10 guys in line, Lara just lost and now he has to wait in line,” De La Hoya said of a possible rematch. “So there’s 10 in line that’s the way this works.”
De La Hoya’s statements aren’t sitting well with Lara and he questioned just who all the guys that are supposedly ahead of him in line.
“Oscar De La Hoya said that I have to wait in line to fight Alvarez again because there are 10 others ahead of me. That speaks volumes because he knows Canelo got a gift,” Lara said. “Who are these 10 guys he’s talking about…I want to know. I won this fight and a rematch needs to happen right away.”
