Cuban junior middleweight contender Erislandy Lara isn’t going to sulk about not getting his shot at 154lb WBC champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez, instead Lara will push forward and take a fight in April. Whether that fight is against an eliminator or just a stay busy fight remains to be seen, but Lara’s trainer Ronnie Shields is adamant about keeping his fighter active.
Lara fought to a draw against Vanes Martirosyan in November of last year in a fight that was supposed to determine the mandatory challenger for Canelo’s title. The WBC ordered a rematch between Lara and Martirosyan for another shot at an eliminator, but Martirosyan declined to take the fight and the WBC has been mulling over their options since. The WBC has stated on several occasions that they would give Lara the shot at Canelo; then the WBC said Lara would have to fight an eliminator against the next fighter in line.
As of now, Shields isn’t quite sure exactly what the WBC is intending but he and his fighter are beginning to feel the frustrations of the uncertainty brought on by indecisiveness.
“I can’t tell you what’s on the WBC’s mind; they tell us one thing and do another. First, they say we have to fight some Italian guy, then they say ‘no, we’ll just let y’all fight Canelo’ but Canelo just signed to fight Austin Trout. We have to go through the legal stuff before we can say what’s going on,” Shields said.
Regardless, Shields feels it is best to keep Lara fighting rather than waiting in the shadows.
“Having [Lara] stay active is very important and that’s what we’re going to do. We are fighting somebody in April no matter what.”
Shields said April was the date and it didn’t matter the opponent or the capacity of the fight, either way Lara will be in action. When asked whether or not he thought it made sense for Lara to be on the undercard of Canelo-Trout being that it is in April Shields responded, “I think it would.”
