The Canelo Alvarez, Erislandy Lara fight was not a great fight.  In fact, following the recent Crawford and Algieri fights, it was downright boring.  Add to that a questionable score of 117-111 for Alvarez by judge Levi Martinez, and the Canelo, Lara fight is not what boxing needed.  But there is a larger, more important point that needs to be made following the fight and it doesn’t center on Lara.  Lara fought the fight I and most boxing enthusiasts thought he would.  It was the correct fight plan for him and in the end, almost won him the fight.

The larger question is, why is Canelo Alvarez, a young fighter with all kinds of talent, not improving?  Alvarez as the aggressor should have done a better job of cutting off the ring.  Instead, he simply chased Lara for much of the fight, sometimes landing punches and sometimes not, despite being the aggressor.  In response to Lara’s strategy following the fight, Alvarez said, “We knew it was going to be that kind of fight and that I’d have to pressure him but I didn’t think he’d be running a marathon.”  But the real question he should be asking is why he didn’t do a better job of catching him, landing just 23% of his punches.  Alvarez has reached a certain level and has shown no improvement in his last two fights, which should not be the case for a young fighter.  It almost reminds me of what happened to Miguel Cotto as he entered the prime of his career.  Perhaps, Alvarez needs a corner change.  Freddie Roach might be able to take him to the next level.  If he was to again fight Floyd Mayweather, the result would be exactly the same.  In fact, he might not do as well.

So I will allow all of the commentators and so-called boxing experts to argue about the scoring but to me that was the smallest issue of the evening.  Alvarez could have lost.  I had it 115-113 for him as did Dave Moretti but one can easily understand the 115-113 for Lara on Jerry Roth’s scorecard.  Lara is an excellent fighter but is not an elite fighter?  Alvarez needs to watch this fight and make some tough decisions if he ever hopes to enter the ranks of the elite, pound for pound boxers.  Otherwise, he will simply be another good fighter with a question attached to him of “how good might he have been, If?