On December 7th, Junior Middleweight standouts Erislandy Lara and Austin “No Doubt” Trout will enter the ring and compete for the vacant WBC Light Middleweight title. In Lara’s last time out, he ran into a brick wall named Alfredo Angulo who pressured Lara relentlessly over ten rounds, including knocking him down for the first two times in his career in rounds four and nine, before pulling his own version of “No Mas” and quit the fight after suffering a bad eye injury in the tenth round.
Although Trout has recently catapulted himself to the top of the division with a win of Miguel Cotto and giving a spirited effort against Canelo Alvarez, Lara feels that just as fast as Trout has come on, he will just as quickly fall. “Austin Trout is an okay fighter. There’s nothing special about him. I feel that he’s on his way out. He had his time and I’m going to prove that. And as far as having a heart, you know, let’s see in the ring,” stated Lara.
In the build up to this fight, Lara and Trout haven’t agreed on much. What they have agreed on is that although the winner of this fight may get a shot a big fight with Canelo, they can’t look past each other because this is a dangerous fight for both. “My job is to first beat Austin Trout and then after that all the other doors are going to open up and I’ll take on all comers. Right now I’m just focused on the fight and I’m focused on busting up Austin Trout’s mouth.”
The last southpaw that Lara faced was Paul Williams where Lara lost the fight on the judge’s score cards but it was a unanimous consensus that Lara won the fight. Since Trout is a southpaw it’s leaving many to compare the two fighters to gauge what the matchup could look like and although some want to make the comparison, Lara is candid about what he thinks the difference is between the two, he stated, “Well, the big difference between Paul Williams and Austin Trout is that Paul Williams has balls. He was a fighter that would attack you and he was aggressive and he would come at you and he knew how to box as well. With Austin Trout, he’s just a guy that runs; he’s a fighter that runs.”
Both Lara and Trout are categorized as being natural boxers. Lara has been criticizing Trout stating that in his fights he more worried about running and staying alive than he is winning the fights. There is a stark contrast between Angulo and Trout’s ring style. While Lara is not taking anything away from Angulo for the two knockdowns he thinks that Trout isn’t even on the same level has Angulo, Lara stated, “It’s not the same as a stand and fight right in front of you at a fighting distance than to be standing far away and trying to fight far away.” He continued, “He (Angulo) did drop me twice, but we’re talking about Angulo, who is a very good fighter. He’s a big puncher. He came to win. He was well prepared and he caught me with perfect punches that could pretty much drop anybody. But the fact is that I did get up and I finished the fight and I won.”
Past events don’t prediction future outcomes, but it’s hard to ignore the fact that going to the cards and leaving the decision to the judges is a gamble. For Lara, the past is the past and he cannot lose sight of who is inside the ring and pushing for the knockout is not what he is looking to do.
“I’m going to be calm in this fight. I’m going to do my job and I’m very confident that doing my job is going to have the results and I’ll be fine and I should win.”
