Erislandy Lara Calls Out Winner Of Ortiz-Berto
by Waldo Rastel on Jan 10, 2012 12:00 AM EST
in Boxing News Analysis
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Erislandy Lara is coming off a career-best performance against Paul Williams, but it looks like he also inherited Tall Paul's problems. The punisher used to be one of the most avoided men in boxing until Sergio Martinez shattered the myth of Paul Williams. Lara technically lost to Paul Williams but almost everyone in boxing agrees that this was the robbery of the year last year. Lara completely dominated Williams, landing the overhand right with such regularity that the HBO team was calling for Williams to retire. Now Lara is having difficulty finding a big fight so he's going about it the old fashioned way, by calling out everyone in a nearby weight class. Ryan Burton of Boxing Scene reports some of the quotes from Lara's recent appearance on Boxing Lab. Lara first talked about being on the Berto-Ortiz undercard.
"It is a great opportunity to fight on the Berto-Ortiz card. We can show what we can do versus Hearns and go from there. We think Golden Boy will turn us right back around in another fight. We will be ready to fight (Canelo) Alvarez right after."
First of all, Lara is never ever ever going to allowed anywhere near Alvarez. It's the same issue the potential Martinez-Chavez Jr. fight. Lara is far too dangerous and does not have any name recognition. Good on Lara for trying.
"We would go down to 147 for the right opportunity. We would go down to fight the Berto-Ortiz winner at 147 and then look to fight Mayweather."
Lara could maybe get the loser of Berto-Ortiz but he has no chance of getting the winner. No one is going to pay $2 million for Lara versus either of those fighters because Lara is simply not worth it. Then Lara finishes it off with another call out.
"The fight I want the most is Sergio Martinez. He is the best fighter out there and we want to fight the best. We also want to fight Canelo but Canelo obviously is nowhere near Martinez's level."
So Martinez is this most realistic possibility since Sergio Martinez has a very similar problem and honestly it could be a decent scrap. I really feel bad for Lara because he did extremely well in his last fight and deserves to get a decent payday. However, boxing isn't fair and good fighters get screwed. Who do you guys think Lara should fight next?
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First of all, these long “interviews” with Lara where he basically calls out every fighter on the planet appear on Boxingscene about every month. It’s pretty obvious by the language that it’s his manager/promoter releasing them, not the fighter. Plus, don’t imagine these are actual interviews where a journalist went and stuck a microphone into Lara’s face. They email his manager some questions and he emails back the answers and also adds some other questions to his liking to make his fighter look good. This practice really bugs me but then again I suppose this is what you get when you don’t have a serious promoter.
Second of all, I strongly believe than even avoided fighters like Lara would be able to get good fights if they settled for less money. I know it’s easy for me to tell them to go get in a ring to get their brains bashed in for little money and possibly enforce their status as “avoided” with a win, but there you go, it’s his call.
Third, he should go for K9 Bundrage‘s IBF title. That’s not a big money fight and it would probably be difficult to sell, so he would have to take little money and accept Don King’s clauses and terms, but the truth is he would probably have a good chance of walking away with a title. Then he would be able to call the shots. He won’t get any shots against fighters with a big promoter, but looking at the rankings, guys like Delvin Rodriguez, Sergiy Dzinziruk or Austin Trout (who also owns some sort of regular silver emeritus interim champion in recess sort of thing) might be perfectly doable fights.
Personally I wouldn’t mind seeing him against Jan Zaveck, I really wish some US network would give him a chance again.
Jan Zaveck could be good
and I would definitely like to see Austin Trout school him too, and get a bit of a boost that way.
As a tall guy, you gotta make the shorter guy take risks to get to you. Go through a bad neighborhood to get you.
Austin Trout vs Lara would be a snoozer, and in no way does Trout school Lara. Lara isn’t an ancient David Lopez, or Rigoberto Alvarez.
by 36_chambers_ofdeatH on Jan 10, 2012 2:26 PM EST up reply actions
but who's Lara?
a guy who got a gift decision against Molina and got robbed against Williams, and isn’t a big puncher anyway. Agree that Trout – Lara might not be the most exciting fight ever, but beating him would do some good for Trout (given Lara’s name recognition after hsi last fight) better than the last mismatch he had, anyway…
As a tall guy, you gotta make the shorter guy take risks to get to you. Go through a bad neighborhood to get you.
I don’t think it’s realistic to expect to be able to get a fight with a Don King beltholder in 2012, especially given Lara’s quality. Loads of guys around that division aside from Lara have been mentioned in connection to that fight since everyone knows it’s the easiest belt to pick up, yet none has ever come close to materializing. And if Lara has to give up extensive options, he still wouldn’t really be in much of a position to call the shots at all, despite whatever apparent advantages a trinket would supposedly give him.
I’d also be curious if you have any evidence for your claim that avoided guys can still get good fights if they take less money. My view is that very often that’s not the case, and I have big concerns about a narrative that shifts responsibility from attractive opponents who turn down fights to those getting the short end of the stick. I do agree about Lara’s call-outs and the “quality” of such articles from boxing scene though.
No, I don’t have any evidence, at least none I can think of right now. But to me it seems most boxers are in a “make money now” mode and will always hope to make their very next fight a big money fight. So I imagine if your opponent offers up a big part of his cut, most boxers/managers would jump at that opportunity.
In order to have any evidence, we would have to think of an avoided fighter, claiming nobody wanted to fight him and reports later surfaced that he was turning down fights. Vanes Martirosyan – style (not that Vanes is an avoided fighter)
I think he should go fight Molina again
I never feel too sorry for Lara, because athough he got screwed worse, I really didn’t see an argument for him getting a draw against Carlos Molina. I’m sure he wouldn’t go near a rematch. He just got outhustled and then didn’t really know what to do. I think stylistically it could be interesting for a little bit with Martinez, but I honestly think that he would just beat him up badly.
As a tall guy, you gotta make the shorter guy take risks to get to you. Go through a bad neighborhood to get you.
Molina is one of the myriad of guys Lara’s manager is always calling out. Quite frankly I find it easier to believe that Molina is the one who wouldn’t be interested; he could justifiably feel he won the fight and that he now deserves the bigger opportunities on HBO rather than having to slum it with Lara on ESPN or ShoBox.
fair enough
maybe he priced himself out of it or something. Or maybe he thinks that if he couldn’t get the decision last time when he won that clearly, there’s no point in going in again. Iwould have thought he’d be up for doing it again, but hey
As a tall guy, you gotta make the shorter guy take risks to get to you. Go through a bad neighborhood to get you.
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