Last week at the Cosmopolitan Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada, Erislandy Lara (23-2-2, 13 KOs), the slick southpaw from Houston, Texas, by way of Guantanamo, Cuba, successfully defended his WBA/IBO super welterweight titles by defeating Vanes Martirosyan after 12 rounds.
The fight was a rematch of their 2012 clash that ended in the ninth round after an accidental clash of heads.
That Lara decided to fight a terrific fighter like Martirosyan speaks volumes about his ambitions in the ring.
“For me I fought perfectly,” said Lara. “I took Vanes out of his game plan and I won a unanimous decision.”
That he did.
Lara wants a rematch with Canelo, to whom he lost a disputed split decision in 2014 for the WBC middleweight title. The red-haired slugger from Guadalajara has thus far shown little interest in tangling with “The American Dream” a second time.
With Canelo busy elsewhere, Lara has set his sights on the other big fish in the middleweight sea, namely WBA/WBC/IBF/IBO middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin (35-0, 32 KOs), the undefeated killer from Kazakhstan.
“I want Canelo or Golovkin,” Lara told BoxingScene.com. “We can do the rematch or I will fight Golovkin. I want the big fights to put food in my family’s mouth.”
Canelo crushed Amir Khan in his last fight. In Golovkin’s last fight, Triple G slaughtered Dominic Wade, his mandatory for the IBF belt, at The Forum in LA.
If either Golovkin or Canelo are looking for a tough fight, their people should give Lara a call.
“Yes,” Lara said, “everything is possible. It’s not a problem. We just need to sit down and make it happen.”
This article was penned by the author who is not related to the WBA and the statements, expressions or opinions referenced herein are that of the author alone and not the WBA.
