This was the fight that Saul “Canelo” Alvarez’s team didn’t want him to take and the result showed everyone just why they had their doubts about facing Erislandy Lara.
From the start of the bout Canelo (44-1-1, 31 KOs) was stalking Lara (19-2-2, 12 KOs) around the ring at the sold out MGM Grand Garden, trying to land shots where he could as Lara ducked and dodged most of those attempts and fired back with accurate counter shots.
There were several times when Alvarez through huge shots only to miss wildly and Lara was able to get of trouble almost every time he fell into it. Even though Lara was able to make Alvarez miss, he seldom threw any counter shots after those huge misses which could be a major reason why Lara wasn’t able to pull out the victory Saturday night.
Overall CompBox punch stats showed that Lara landed more punches and connected at a higher rate than Alvarez landing 107 of the 386 punches he threw. Canelo landed 97 of 415 total punches thrown and of those 97 punches landed, 88 were power shots of which 73 were to the body.
In fact, Alvarez only landed nine out of his 183 jabs thrown, while Lara landed 55 of the 246 he threw. When you analyze the stats it would appear that Lara should be found the clear winner, as body punching usually doesn’t win a fight via decision.
The only reason these numbers are deceiving is that Lara moved around the ring so much everyone felt that he spent more time running around the ring than he did throwing punches.
“I came to fight, I didn’t come to run here,” Canelo said. “You don’t win by running. You win by hitting. He does have a great jab and he moves around, but you don’t win a fight that way. You don’t run.”
Even though he landed more shots at a higher accuracy than Canelo, Lara failed to capitalize on several opportunities that would help sway the fight in his direction.
Alvarez’s face showed that Lara’s punches caused some damage despite him trying to hide it behind the sunglasses he wore to the post fight press conference.
When Golden Boy Promotions president Oscar De La Hoya said he wasn’t keen to a rematch as the initial feedback he received said that the interest for one just wasn’t there.
“There is 10 guys in line. Lara just lost so he has to wait in line. This is how it works,” De La Hoya said.
Lara on the other had saw the fight differently especially when he and his team analyzed the punch stat sheet at the presser. As they discovered the discrepancy between Lara and Canelo’s punch stats they were even more adamant that Lara should have won.
“One hundred percent I won this fight,” Lara said. “I was controlling the rounds and, worse, I made him look bad in front of his fans. People know I won this fight.”
The fight everyone thought would happen did take place and the fears of Canelo’s team to take the fight came to light as the bout was tough to judge and the split decision result supports that. The final result wasn’t very controversial as the fight really could have went to either fighter, but one of the judges, Levi Martinez, score of 117-11 had Lara’s team demanding an investigation into his actions.
