No controversy as Lara dances his way to loss vs Canelo

A casual boxing fan might have had strong suspicions that Erislandy Lara hailed from Chicago, Ill. instead of Guantanamo, Cuba by his performance Saturday night. In the biggest fight of his career, Lara (19-2-2, 12 KO) moved, sidestepped and shuffled his way to a split decision loss to Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (44-1-1, 31 KO) in front of 14,239 people. Lara and his camp are screaming robbery, but if the case went to trial, a savvy defense attorney would simply ask the jury, how a man running that fast could be robbed?

It’s as if as soon as the opening bell rang, Lara’s internal iPod began to play R. Kelly’s “Step in the Name of Love:”

Step step, side to side, round and round, dip it now

Separate, bring it back, let me see you do the love slide

Lara’s lateral movement against Alvarez succeeded in keeping his opponent off balance and mindlessly following Lara around for much of the fight. However, Lara simply didn’t do much work in the brief time he stopped to engage. Normally, (successful) pure boxers throw swift combinations when in range then get out of the way before their opponent can return fire. For Lara, up until the ninth round, he only threw two punches at a time.

While it was apparent that Alvarez couldn’t cut off a ring with a chainsaw, he brought the fight to his dancing opponent the entire fight. The rare times he backed Lara up against the ropes or the corner, he unleashed three, four or five punch combinations, often to the body. It was clear that Alvarez was the harder puncher, but he also was the more aggressive fighter.

For those screaming about the punch stats, please understand that close numbers tell no tale. The only time punch stat numbers are really important is when there’s a big difference in the stats and the final results. According to CompuBox punch statistics, Alvarez landed 97 of 415 punches (23 percent), including 73 percent of his power shots to the body, and Lara connected on 107 of 386 blows (28 percent). Those number are very comparable, meaning it was likely a close bout, not the robbery that disappointed fans are screaming for. When you consider that more than half (55 out of 107) of Lara’s landed punches were jabs, the minor advantages in percentage and punches landed seem insignificant.

The sad thing is that now boxing has increasingly become like politics. Whenever there’s a relatively close fight, the loser’s fans scream robbery and outrage and simply refuse to accept the decision. As an objective observer (I don’t consider myself a fan or a hater of either fighter. I respect both.), people calling for an investigation should be slapped or forced to watch 24 hours of John Ruiz fights as a punishment for the fight fan’s form of flopping.

Had Lara won a close decision, I would not have been outraged. Though I scored the bout 116-112 in favor of Alvarez, there were enough close rounds where neither fighter was particularly impressive, that I would understand the difference in opinion. However, in close rounds, I’m far more likely to award it to the guy advancing forward than that guy doing the Electric Slide for twelve straight rounds.

Boxing judges base their scoring off four areas of criteria: clean punching, effective aggressiveness, ring generalship and defense. In this fight, neither combatant was particularly accurate or sharp, as evidenced by the percentage of punches landed. In my book, a clean power punch is worth more than a clean jab. I’m not disregarding the jab as a powerful weapon, but no sensible judge would award a round to a fighter who landed 10 solid jabs over one who landed 10 solid hooks assuming everything else was equal. Even though body shots are often treated as the red-headed stepchild of boxing, they count as scoring blows. So clean punching goes to Alvarez.

Effective aggressiveness is easy. Though it could easily be argued that Alvarez’s aggressiveness was not all that effective, Lara was not aggressive at all. He went sideways or backwards the entire fight. Category goes to Alvarez.

Ring generalship is another easy selection. While Lara’s strategy wasn’t fan-friendly, it was effective in stymieing his opponent’s offense. Alvarez wandered around lost like his internal GPS was stuck in an endless loop of rerouting to find his opponent. Category awarded to Lara.

Defense may seem like an easy choice, but it’s not. While Lara’s movement was effective, a good defense sets up opportunities for offense. Lara’s did not. He simply ran, ran and ran some more. The times he was in range, he was hit at an astounding percentage to the body. He must be given credit for blocking or dodging most of his opponents head shots, but again, body blows count and he did an awful job of defending his midsection. For Alvarez, he wasn’t hit too often with anything other than weak jabs. Part of that is because that’s what Lara threw most, but Alvarez’s hard shots on the offensive end actually helped his defense because Lara did not want to engage. Though I really want to call this a draw, I’ll give it to Lara as he was clearly the more defensive-minded fighter and worked hard on the defensive end.

There you have it. The fighters split the four categories that count most. Why? Because it was a close fight. Yes, Lara controlled the pace of the fight, but he rarely capitalized on his counter punch opportunities meaning all his movement, was just for the sake of movement. Sadly for Lara, in addition to losing the fight, he also lost an opportunity to gain fans in the biggest match of his career.