Erislandy Lara will enter his July 12 bout with Mexican superstar Canelo Alvarez as an underdog despite often talking as if he's a heavy favorite. The confident Cuban's smack talk has raised his profile, and even Alvarez admits his constant barbs earned him this big opportunity.
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"Erislandy Lara has talked a lot of trash, and that's why he's gotten this opportunity," Alvarez said. "He said a lot of things in the media and on Twitter and in various other social media."
Lara's referred to Alvarez as "Canela" on Twitter, claimed to beat up Alvarez and all of his brothers, and even went as far as crashing Alvarez's post fight press conference and publicly challenging him after he had vanquished Alfredo Angulo. Alvarez has managed to keep his cool throughout the proceedings, but his recent comments reveal he's been seething under the surface.
"Lara's a good 154-pounder, and I'm going to give him credit for that. But this fight is about the glory and the honor," Alvarez said. "I'm fighting this fight because of the trash that Erislandy Lara talked these last couple of months, and I'm going fight him on July 12, and I'm going to shut him up."
Lara actually worried he had taken his antics too far with the stunt at the post-Angulo presser, telling ESPN he thought Alvarez would refuse him over the slight. "Originally, I thought he would never take the fight because I confronted him in person and he said, 'No this is not how you make fights,'" Lara said. "Then after the fans saw that he was ducking me on Twitter, he had no choice but to be a man and take the challenge."
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He also expressed that the style he learned as a Cuban amateur, a slick, defensive approach heavy on hard counterpunching, will be plenty to overcome Canelo's brute force. "[A win] means everything to me," Lara said. "For me to demonstrate to the world that I'm not just better than him, but that I'm 150 percent better than him, means everything to me. Like I said before, I'm going to take him to Cuban school."
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