Trainer: Lara Wants Bigger Fights, But Must Take Care of Family

By Keith Idec

Other than Jermall Charlo, who’s trained by the same man as him, Erislandy Lara spent much of 2016 calling out the best 154-pound boxers in the world and middleweight champ Gennady Golovkin.

None of those challenges came to fruition, which left Lara to accept a January 13 fight against former 154-pound champ Yuri Foreman in Miami. Lara, the WBA world super welterweight champion, will defend his title against Foreman in a scheduled 12-round fight Spike is expected to televise.

“Lara has proven himself,” said Ronnie Shields, who trains Lara and Jermall Charlo, the IBF 154-pound champ, in Houston. “He has always asked to fight the best guys out there. He has never run from anybody and he still doesn’t get his just due, man. It’s very frustrating. It’s so frustrating to him that whoever he fights, people criticize it. But when he asks for the best guys, people turn him down.

“So, you know, he has a family and he has to take care of his family, just like everybody else does. This is why he tries to fight the best fighters out there. But they won’t fight him, so look, he’s a professional fighter and he has to continue fighting. The next guy up is Yuri Foreman.”

Since he turned pro in July 2008, the Cuban-born Lara (23-2-2, 13 KOs) has lost only a split decision to Canelo Alvarez (48-1-1, 34 KOs) in July 2014 and a majority decision to Paul Williams (41-2, 27 KOs, 1 NC), a fight Lara seemingly deserved to win in July 2011.

The skilled southpaw hasn’t fought since winning a unanimous decision over Vanes Martirosyan (36-3-1, 21 KOs) on May 21 in Las Vegas. The 36-year-old Foreman (34-2, 10 KOs, 1 NC) is 2-0 since ending a two-year layoff a year ago, but has boxed exclusively journeymen since New Jersey’s Pawel Wolak (29-2-1, 19 KOs) stopped him in their March 2011 bout in Las Vegas.

Brooklyn’s Foreman is 6½ years removed from his brief reign as WBA world super welterweight champ, but isn’t a tune-up type of opponent, either.

“It’s a fight to test [Lara], to see how he handles a boxer, somebody that moves a lot,” Shields said. “Lara’s a guy that loves to test his skills against a lot of people. As you know, Lara calls a lot of people out. He wants to fight the best guys out there. That’s why he keeps calling the best guys out. He just wants to show, ‘Hey, I can fight boxers, I can fight punchers, I can fight people that do both.

“Yuri Foreman, he’s an ex-world champion. He’s a guy with a lot of heart. You saw it when he fought [Miguel] Cotto. He fell with a bum knee and kept on going. You can’t take anything away from the kid because he was a world champion at one point. And now, he’s back in contention. Our job is to get out there and to beat him.”

Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.