By Keith Idec

To an extent, Ronnie Shields understands Gennady Golovkin’s reluctance to fight Erislandy Lara.

What Shields, Lara’s trainer, doesn’t understand is why boxing fans and media make it sound as if no one around the middleweight limit wants to fight Golovkin when Lara clearly does. Shields is confident the skilled Cuban southpaw could present problems for Golovkin most of his opponents have been unable to offer.

“Lara’s a tough guy to fight,” Shields told BoxingScene.com. “He can make you look bad because of his style. But you’re supposed to be one of the best fighters in the world, so you should want to test your skills against the best fighters in the world.

“So why not a guy like Erislandy? Why not prove it against his style and all styles? Lara’s there, and he’s willing to go up and fight him at his own weight. He’s not asking him to come down and fight at a catch weight. He’s saying, ‘I’ll come up there.’ ”

Shields doesn’t expect Golovkin (35-0, 32 KOs) and his handlers to change their minds about boxing Lara (23-2-2, 13 KOs), even if Mexican superstar Canelo Alvarez (47-1-1, 33 KOs) avoids a much-anticipated showdown with the Kazakh knockout artist.

“Triple-G, he wants big fights,” Shields said. “And I understand that. He wants to fight Canelo, or guys he can make a whole lot of money with. I understand that, too. But if you can’t find anybody to fight, why not fight Erislandy Lara? He’s a smaller guy who’s willing to move up, who’s not chickening out and saying, ‘I’m not a middleweight.’ The thing about Lara is he’ll fight anybody. It doesn’t make a difference.”

Keith Idec covers boxing for The Record and Herald News, of Woodland Park, N.J., and BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.