BoxPrep

I'm only going to touch the 4 main fights even though there were more. Canelo Alvarez vs Erislandy Lara I picked Canelo by stoppage in the 10th but also said that it could be a boring fight because of styles. Well, it was definitely an uneventful fight. Canelo isn't the pressure fighter people think he is, he's a counter puncher by trade and when he does come forward, does it with intelligence and caution. I knew Lara was going to move, but I expected him to throw more. In the first 3-4 rounds it was a very tough fight to score because neither man was really doing much. I gave those early rounds to Lara because he was moving a lot, but was landing 1-2's more often and keeping Canelo at distance. Then in the middle to later rounds, Lara stopped punching. I think there was a moment in the fight where Lara realized that Canelo is not only more powerful than he thought, but a better boxer than he expected. Mayweather vs Canelo played out much different and the comparisons aren't justified IMO. Mayweather moved yes, but also stood in front of Canelo and made him pay. He realized that Canelo was nowhere near the boxer he was, and standing in front of him wasn't really a risk. Where as Lara I think realized that the longer he stood in front of Canelo, the more risk it was because eventually he was going to get caught. Canelo did have a hard time cutting the ring off, but that's again because he comes forward but with caution. He's not going to come in like Angulo face first and risk getting caught with a big shot. Instead he was taking angles, using the jab effectively and going to the body beautifully. I do think those body shots also affected Lara even though he wouldn't admit it. I scored it 7-5 for Canelo, but I think a draw would have been justified. These fights are incredibly hard to judge because it depends on what style you like more. Do you score it for Lara who used better defense, movement and landed more head shots? Or do you score it for Canelo who pressured, used effective aggression and landed the better body shots and harder punches? It's a tough call and 115-113 either way was understandable but that last judge at 117-111 was a disgrace. Lara screwed himself though, he talked a lot leading up to the fight, he wanted this fight and called it the fight of his life and then shows up and.....DUD. Just doesn't do anything and thinks he's still in the Pan American games fighting in the international amateur system. This is the pro's and boxing and moving is great, but you have to land shots eventually. The Cuban school of boxing is fantastic....for the amateurs. For the pro's they need to learn to adjust, and understand that what wins in the end is throwing punches, it is boxing when all is said and done. I personally don't want to see a rematch, not because it's a hard fight for Canelo, but because of the styles. They just don't mesh well, the same reason I didn't want to see Canelo vs Mayweather again. Lara now has to go to the back of the line, and maybe we see Cotto and Canelo take a fight before a big showdown next year. Style wise, Canelo vs Cotto would be incredible. This has all the makings of FOTY and you mix in the Mexico vs PR thing, it's a mega fight. Since when does all of the talking outside of the ring decide who's the better fighter in it? Canelo threw an average of 2.5 more punches than Lara each round throughout the fight. 2.5! I wish Canelo threw more instead of followed Lara around throwing nothing. At least Angulo was throwing punches while he walked Lara down and cutoff the ring. Fact of the matter is Canelo took the Austin Trout approach and he failed with it as well... he and Trout even landed the same amount on Lara and Trout threw more than Canelo. I do agree that it would have been nice to see Lara stand and trade some more, but what he was doing was effective and it won him the fight. Why does Lara have to do more and Canelo doesn't -- because Lara talked before the fight? Canelo and his camp had a ton to say leading up as well -- who cares?

I have watched it 3 times now and let me address how absolutely absurd your logic is, and don't get offended because I'm not trying to be a di.ck. First off, Berto and anyone else can have an opinion if you can. Joe Goosen, another one who thought Canelo won, who knows more about boxing than you and I have forgotten. Second, judging is SUBJECTIVE. This isn't a mathematical equation as you are making it out to be. There are rules and guidelines as to how you should judge a fight, but different people hold some over others. For example, if a boxer lands 15 jabs in a round, then in that same round, the other fighter lands one hard shot that seems to stun that fighter, who do you give the round to? Canelo isn't going to take shots needlessly like Angulo, because Canelo knows he can box with Lara. Before you say Lara clearly out boxed him, Lara clearly defended well against Canelo, but he didn't land enough, nor was he aggressive enough in his counter punching to win that fight. I have no issue with you having scored it for Lara, but to say it was a robbery, does you a disservice and takes away all credibility from you. I been in this game for a long time, I have seen many robberies, and this was not one of them. Great for Berto... He also said he could beat Mayweather. Great for Goosen, I mean, we all know how he only trains technical boxers like Mayweather, Lara, Rigo, etc... Never knew how savvy a boxer John Molina is. Matter of fact, he says he picked Canelo because he always likes the aggressor, yet in his opinion he says Lara didn't KD or hurt Canelo.... wait when did Canelo KD or hurt Lara? Right, he didn't. I completely understand that it's subjective, but in this instance, what is there to base giving certain rounds to Canelo? Again, it wasn't effective pressure, look at Angulo vs Lara for a definition of effective pressure. And I'm only using effective pressure because everyone that says it isn't a robbery is using that weak stance for reasoning as to why Lara lost while conveniently leaving out the fact that Lara could do what he wanted in there undeterred and controlled the pace of the fight. As far as your thoughts that Canelo "knows" he could box with Lara, we both know that isn't true. If he could box with Lara, he wouldn't have taken Trout approach to just follow him around the ring (while being even less active than Trout was). If he could box him, he would have baited Lara in and set traps, but he didn't, he was following the carrot. Look, you're saying that Lara had to do more. Canelo threw an average of two more punches a round than Lara and landed less. Why didn't Canelo do more? Tell me, what did Canelo do in terms of Lederman's scoring criteria that was better than Lara? Rewatch the fight when it's available.

We went into this very deeply last night, into the wee hours. He had the fight "116-112 or 117-111" for Lara. I had it 115-113 for Landy. How far can you get with someone who thought the fight was that wide? If I scored it that way, I'd call it a robbery, too. lol But my score was "absurd." lmao Rewatch the fight and get back to me... this is coming from the guy who didn't even score the rounds and just said "well, it was close, so 115-113 Lara I guess." You even said you probably had Lara up 4-0, which means you had him losing five of the next eight rounds. So yeah, absurd.

Cuauh, who did you tab to win the Love-Rosado fight last year? Since you're talking about TMT opinions, I saw his in a post-fight.

I don't give a damn about Lara, Trout and Canelo. They don't pay my bills, are not my friends. I just like boxing. But how do you justify the bs scorecards in 3 of his last four fights?. He might be the best paid boxer, or among the best paid. But part of that money is going to be needed to pay off judges if the tendency doesn't change. How do you justify or condone that?. Just for the record, I'm not defending Lara, he was too amateurish and way too negative. Canelo cannot be handed every relatively close fight. I don't care how much he gets paid. Tacit approval to corruption isn't good for the sport. Exactly. That's what boxing has boiled down to. It wasn't a fan-friendly fight despite how much it had been anticipated over the last couple years, but fan-friendly or not, Alvarez didn't do anything to show he deserved the nod. In fact, he did less than Lara.

Thanks for the kudos, guys!

Maybe you didn't understand my original post. If you are going to talk big, say your going to do this and that, I would think you would do more than just pot shot and move for 12 rounds. Also, Canelo won the fight in the eyes of the judges, it wasn't a robbery but it was a very close hard to score fight. And if you talk big and say you're going to KO somebody, I'd figure that you'd do more than just walking around following the mover staring at him. Stop letting trash talk and social media trash talk cloud your judgement. I couldn't care less what all was said, what mattered is what took place in the ring and Brick Alvarez had no clue how to beat Lara, let alone stop him from doing whatever he wanted in the ring. If you can't see a robbery -- and you being an amateur and pro boxing trainer -- I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and chalk it up to bias.

This is an absurd statement. Have you seen Paulie Malignaggi, Al Bernstein, Robert Garcia, Andre Berto, many of the TMT fighters, and others I can't remember right say the same exact thing I said about the fight. I think the fight could have gone either way, 115-113 was the right score, but for WHO is subject to interpretation. Now you want to say that Lara or Canelo CLEARLY won, or that it was a robbery, I think it is you that is biased. You had one fighter who moved for 12 rounds, pot shotted his opponent landing minimum shots and the other who chased, didn't land much to the head of his opponent but was the aggressor. So who do you give that too? My point is, it's hard to decide. This is where we disagree... and I'm not even going to address the opinions of those because Berto isn't a boxer.... nor are those TMT guys (sidenote: if you hadn't noticed, they all were at one point or another, Mayweather's sparring partners in the past). Cuban Guy posted a great video on Harold Ledermen's criteria for scoring fights in another thread, in all of the categories listed (Clean Punching, Effective Aggression, Ring Generalship, Defense), not one of them did Canelo prove he was better, or even on the same level as Lara. There's this mythical phrase going around about Canelo last Saturday and how he was "pressing the action", how? Angulo was pressing the action against Lara. The guy was extremely busy and he paid the price for it. No way did Canelo try to open up and take two or three to land one and make it a brawl and make Lara uncomfortable. Canelo got outboxed, plain and simple. It wasn't a draw and a 115-113 card is stretching it. Whenever the fight is posted or replayed, watch it again. I guarantee you it won't look as close as you initially thought.

Canelo could box in the sense that he moved forward defensively responsible, used feints to make Lara reset and actually landed some jabs. If that wasn't case Lara wouldn't have moved corner to corner second guessing his attack. Hence the running accusations. Also, it's downright stupid to bring up the 4 criterias in a fight where both fighters were inconsistent and the bold is about the most inaccurate shit said pertaining to this fight. It's seems you need to watch it again or have your eyes checked at the very least. Not inaccurate at all... the only reason people are saying Lara lost was because of Canelo "bringing the pressure" and "trying to make the fight" couple with Lara "well, Lara did all this trash talking before the fight on social media." Canelo followed Lara around the ring not even throwing anything and there were several moments where He just stared at Lara when Lara did stand in front of him or lean against the ropes. After watching the replay, I could only had rounds 4, 7, 8, and 9 for Canelo. Canelo fought Lara's fight and he lost.

I'd still like to see Andre Dirrell - Andre Ward. Back when it was supposed to happen in the Super 6, I thought it would be a great, technical match.

Lara fans that are crying robbery have lost any credibility they had in the last week. WHY dont you make another GIF to show us how lara won? lmao http://cdn.fansided.com/gif/3-26.gif

Nice card. Looks to be 120-107. :lol1: Really, which rounds did you give Canelo and which to Lara?

I agree 100%. I understand the phenomena. I can't say I have any celebrity friends, but I've worked around and come into contact with many. A little bubble develops, and people start to lose touch with reality. I don't doubt that some of that is happening with Lara. But I was really referring to the arrogance and nastiness I'm detecting in him. I don't get that from Gamboa, for instance. I don't know what Lara is normally like, but it's tough to get behind a guy like that. Speaking of Yuri, he got a lot more sympathy in defeat than Lara. Gamboa didn't talk all kinds of trash before the Crawford fight. He fought his heart out and got KTFO. Afterwards, he was humble, despite his cocky persona. And when people started criticizing his team, especially his father, for his loss, Yuri stepped up and defended them. He accepted full responsibility for the loss. Lara has been almost the polar opposite. Gamboa wasn't chasing Crawford for 2-3 years begging for a fight. Crawford wasn't, and to a degree still isn't, being crowned the next best thing in boxing -- especially without having proved it against the best in his weight class. These are two completely different scenarios. Let's not forget about the Rios debacle and the most recent with Garcia.

I agree with this. It's too bad he assumed wrong. That's out of his hands, unfortunately. That's what poisons the sport. Can't believe Paulie, Ward, Mayweather, BHop, etc. have lasted this long.

I had it a clear and obviously close 7-5. Don't wanna hear it could go either way cuz I didn't see 7 rds that Canelo won. I'm finding it hard to give Canelo five rounds. Maybe I'll give him the 7th for causing the cut, but I'm still on the fence about the 12th. I gave him that just because of how he started that round.

And another thing to consider is effective aggression. On one hand you can say, Canelo was the aggressor but he was missing. He wasn't effective. But from the other point of view, you can say, Canelos body shots were bothering Lara. They forced him to move and made him reluctant to engage. I'm with the first train of thought but Lara opened the door for the second statement from not doing enough. But Lara took body shots from Angulo and slowed down...? Has it crossed anyone's mind that canelo's body punching may not have had much of an effect. Body shots are meant to slow down the opponent, but apparently, Usain Bolt couldn't catch Lara by the final bell.

Here is my score card...... http://i.onfinite.com/xW4vJ4TDd_m.jpg Plain and simple. It really wasn't that close of a fight, I think... on the cards and in the ring. The only way I could see Canelo winning was by KO and he'd have to get on the inside the way Angulo was... but that's not his kind of work. So as I'm watching this fight, Canelo isn't doing anything that stands out to win rounds, he's just being walked around the ring and isn't being that active. He's just fighting Lara's fight. He got suckered into it the way Trout did.... except Trout has no stardom.

He had to have felt Canelo's power I just don't have any other explanation as to why he was he wasn't throwing much. That Angulo fight was probably in the back of his head and he was even more hesitant than usual not wanting to get caught. I think Lara found that just boxing him was working and felt he was up on the scorecards. Shields was telling him he was doing a great job. The crowd was pretty much nonexistent which is a generally a sign that the visitors are winning. Why change what you assume is working and was? Canelo landed to the body and it didn't slow down Lara. Angulo landed to the body and it took a toll, Lara was dropped twice in that fight. I'm trying to figure out why Canelo didn't open up more...? Maybe he felt something that persuaded him not to just take two to land one..

I didn't write it down. I only remember my final score and a general recollection of the fight. I thought Lara won the first few rounds, either 3-1 or 4-0. Canelo started to pick it up in the middle. After he opened that gash over Lara's eye, Landy become more cautious and Alvarez won another one or two. Lara got back in the game after the bleeding was stemmed and he won another couple of rounds. I think I had Canelo winning the final round. It certainly seemed his team thought he was down and sent him out breathing fire. For Lara's part, he seemed to think he was winning and merely sought to avoid getting caught with something big. That's exactly why I said maybe the 12th, because Canelo started off that round like he was in desperation which led me to believe that he and his corner thought he was losing the fight by a wide margin. But even as that round went on, Lara was able to keep doing what he had been doing. Canelo started off both the 4th and 12th the same way, but he sustained that attacking pressure longer throughout the 4th. The cut happened in round 7.... I also noticed the change in momentum in the 8th and 9th which were clear Canelo rounds. but 10 and 11 were Lara rounds, in my opinion -- we all have them, though. Anyway, you're saying a 4-0 start for Lara, and then he loses five (or possibly more) of the next eight??

Here's a little "he said" for ya, from a thread article posted by Boxingscene a few moments ago. Glen Tapia on what happens if Kirkland fights Alvarez: "It depends on which Kirkland shows up. I thought Lara probably beat Canelo the other night, but you can't fight the way Lara fought and expect to impress the judges. And you have an obligation to the fans, too. That's what I think about when I go into the ring, to put on a show for the people who bought the tickets." This kid gets it. And that's great for Tapia -- but in the long run, well, he may not have a long run with that mindset. I completely understand where he's coming from and what you guys are saying... but to sit there and say that Lara has to do more is wrong, outright. Fans aren't risking their lives. Fans don't care about the fighter after their career is over and if they do, certainly not enough to give them any help financially, etc. That's where the judges are supposed to come in and play their part -- judge the fight for what is actually occurring, not judging for entertainment value.

You mean, like Lara? And what are you talking about with this "he said, she said" shit? You don't know the proper use of that idiom. I saw and heard everything I just explained. I didn't get it from some third party. Look. I had Lara 115-113. As far as I'm concerned, that's not especially convincing. Yeah, like Lara. Neither one of them stood toe-to-toe with Angulo. They both moved and walked him into punches. You seem to be stuck on what Lara said during pre-fight or on social media. So because you enjoy what people say so much, I figured you'd enjoy what people said about Angulo to BJ Flores going into his fight with Canelo. I only saw four rounds that could be scored for Canelo -- 4, 8, 9, and maybe the 12th.

We've been over this. When I say Lara needed to do more, I mean, everyone knows you can't beat the cash cow by a small margin. It's just the way it is. Been meaning to ask you: what was your score for this fight? 117-111 or 116-112 for Lara. I gave Canelo rounds 4, 8, 9, and maybe the 12th -- maybe.

http://cdn.fansided.com/gif/6-6.gif

Bro, that punch was probably the best punch of the fight. It was certainly the one that caused the most damage. It was a clean uppercut. Unless you had Lara dominant in the remainder of that round, Alvarez took it. That must've been my fifth Alvarez round. lol It was a great punch! That's really one of the only highlights he has from this fight. I had Lara winning the 7th, despite the cut. If it knocked him down, staggered him... the ref had to tell the judge the cut was caused by a punch a couple seconds later. But toward the end of the round, Lara was picking at the cut and stopped throwing, so the momentum was starting to shift. His corner did a bad job dealing with it.

With me , I don't personally think he needed to do more. I scored it 115-113 for him. He did enough to win in my eyes. But, the way boxing works, when you're fighting a cash cow who gets the top billing, you have to win 9 rounds just for a shot at a split decision victory. This is exactly the problem, though... and as long as people keep thinking this way, it'll continue. Unfortunately.

You're not gonna miss out on much tbh. Oh wait, you gotta be sure to tune into my boy Danny Garcia vs Rodrigo Salalaka August 9th bro. Stellar match up. Haha! I'm tempted to watch because Pete is extremely entertaining, especially when he starts getting into his rhythm and goes to the body..... but that card looks like an intro to Garcia-Pete for the winter. GGG going to run through Gaele and not move up to fight Ward, essentially picking on another '54 pounder. Porter-Brook for the 16th, some good stuff coming up but no bull, this was going to my boxing super bowl this year and it was ruined by poor judging. I thought it'd be a little more exciting, but putting the excitement aside and watching the bout purely the competitive nature.... I thought for sure Lara would get the nod, start getting more fights, get more admiration from the boxing world and casuals alike........ NOPE.

Dude, it was all to illustrate why Canelo said he was knocking Lara out. You're the one that knocked Saul for it. Landy talked all kinds of mess. It's very hard to overlook that. Lara: "I'm not just better than Canelo, I'm 150% better!" :lol1: C'mon. After that fight, I don't doubt that last statement from Lara. But again, if you're holding all of this talk to Lara and letting it decide your basis for the fight, hold Canelo to it as well. He said he would KO Lara and instead, he couldn't even deliver a KD.... 150% is looking a bit more genuine now.

Judging the effectiveness of punching is one thing. Dismissing defense, lateral movement, making the opponent miss, overall ring generalship is a bit criminal and judges seem to normally forget this. It happens too often. To be fair EFFECTIVE body shots usually are not scored by judges. Canelo obviously seemed to have most count for him, properly landed or not. Exactly. The crazy thing about this point is that while Lara did all of this, he still outlanded Canelo and threw around the same amount. But I guess it takes real talent to follow somebody around in 22ft ring just staring at them.

I've only watched the fight once. I'm gonna re-watch it sometime this week probably. I'm going to re-score, too. When I do, I'll PM you the info. Sounds good, man. I'm going to rewatch as well, it'll probably get worse than Levi Martinez's scorecard, haha. Seriously, this is one of those fights where it'll become more apparent of how bad the scorecards were.

Undoubtedly, Canelo often seems to have one judge strangely biased towards him. Hmmm.... lol And that's the thing that gets me and many others. Levi Martinez's card was that of a man who filled out his score arbitrarily. Literally, it's like he made his scorecard prior to watching tthe fight. I understand he's being investigated by the NSAC. Shit, man, that was a close fight. A impartial judge might've been what Lara needed to get over the hump. Apparently his scorecard read Lara wining the first four rounds and Canelo winning the rest.......