According to Dan Rafael of espn.com, Canelo ALvarez will take on Erislandy Lara in a Pay Per View bout on Juky 12 at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas.
“I’ve been working hard to get this done,” said Golden Boy Promotions Richard Schaefer. “We were able to finalize everything and both fighters were fine with the terms and so now we have a fight — a great fight — between the two best junior middleweights in the world not named Floyd Mayweather.”
The final issue that needed to be resolved was the fact that Lara was already signed to make his first title defense against former titlist Ishe Smith on May 2 at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas on a Fox Sports 1 card being used to help promote Mayweather’s welterweight unification fight against Marcos Maidana the next night at the MGM Grand.
“We’re good to go. We got a deal in place. We’re happy and we’re ready to fight,” Luis DeCubas Jr., Lara’s co-manager, told ESPN.com. “It’s a fight Lara has wanted. He’s been after it for a few years. Now it’s time to get ready in training. I think he really has earned this fight. This is a fight where the fans win. They’ll see the two best junior middleweights who aren’t Floyd Mayweather.”
“The weight is 155 max, which we have no problem with,” DeCubas said. “It doesn’t matter. We got the fight we wanted.”
“It reminds me a little of the fight Canelo had with Austin Trout,” Schaefer said of the unification fight Alvarez won by decision against Trout last April. “Everybody was saying before we made that fight that Canelo was afraid to fight Trout, but he pushed for the fight even when some people in his camp didn’t want the fight. When Canelo came to the office to meet with me a few weeks ago, he had one name in mind. He wanted Erislandy Lara.
“He said he feels Lara is, next to Mayweather, the best fighter at 154 and he wants to challenge himself against the best. A lot of people felt he wouldn’t fight him, but he wants to show he is not afraid to fight anybody. I tried to mention some other names, but he was very clear: ‘Don’t talk to me about anyone else. I want Lara.’ That’s what he said.”
“You see what Canelo did when he fought Trout and what Lara did to Trout,” Schaefer said. “It will be interesting to see how Canelo will deal with Lara, who is a talented and gifted fighter. He showed that will against Angulo to overcome adversity, and he has superb boxing skills.”
