Erislandy Lara vs. Jarrett Hurd – preview

Boxingnews24.com

By Allan Fox

Erislandy Lara (25-2-2, 14 KOs) and Jarett Hurd (21-0, 15 KOs) will be facing each other this Saturday night on April 7 on Showtime Championship Boxing in a unification fight at the Hard Rock Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Lara, 34, will have his WBA Super World junior middleweight title on the line against the 27-year-old Hurd, who will be putting up his IBF World 154 lb. title.

This is a difficult fight to choose the winner because both guys bring different assets to the table that could bring them victory. The southpaw Lara has the speed, defensive ability and boxing skills that could present a problem for the 6’1” Hurd, but he’s facing a much younger, stronger and more powerful guy. Hurd is like a middleweight, who fights at junior middleweight. Hurd is every bit as powerful as Saul Canelo Alvarez was when he beat Lara. The only thing Canelo did was apply pressure for 12 rounds. Hurd is a lot taller than the 5’9” Canelo, and he has a better engine. The pressure that Lara will be dealing with on Saturday night by Hurd will likely be a lot more than what he had to deal with in his contest with Canelo.

”I’m going to say it again. I’m going to clean out the division,” Lara said. ”That has been my plan from the beginning and I’m going to stick to my plan. I don’t care who the champions are. I don’t care what their names are or where they’re from. I’m going to clean up the division and it starts April 7.”

It’s going to be difficult for Lara to get past Hurd this Saturday night. There’s a lot of youth, power and size going for Hurd in this fight. Hurd tends to turn it up a notch after round 6, and he really brings the pressure and the power. From that point on in his fights, Hurd starts hitting with more punching power and his pressure is relentless. Hurd is a different animal completely in the last 5 to 6 rounds of his fights.

In the first part of his fights, Hurd often is struggling not looking great. We saw that in Hurd’s contests with Austin Trout and Tony Harrison. Those fights were basically even affairs through the first 6 rounds. But after that point in the fight, Hurd turned up the gas and wore both of those fighters out and scored knockouts. Hurd stopped Trout in the 10th on October 14 last year, and before that, he defeated Harrison by a 9th round knockout on February 25, 2017. Those were both competitive fights, but Hurd simply had too much size and power for Harrison and Trout to deal with.

The 34-year-old Lara is older than Hurd’s last two opponents, but he’s not necessarily too old to win, but it’s not going to be easy for the Cuban due to the size and strength advantages that Hurd has. One thing that Lara has going against him winning this fight is the fact that he hasn’t fought a good opponent in 4 years. Lara has been padding his record against mostly weak opponents since his 12 round split decision loss to Canelo in July 2014.

You can’t blame Lara for taking on soft opponents, because he’s just been making money and ensuring that he holds onto his WBA 154 lb. title for as long as possible. But when a fighter only takes soft opposition, they are sometimes not up to the task when they suddenly face a guy is so much better than the fodder that they’ve been facing. That might be the case for Lara. He’s had it too easy since 2014, and now he’s fighting a guy that should be competing in the 160 lb. weight class in 6’1” Hurd.

These are Lara’s last 6 opponents since his loss to Canelo Alvarez in 2014:

• Terrell Gausha

• Yuri Foreman

• Vanes Martirosyan

• Jan Zaveck

• Delvin Rodriguez

• Ishe Smith

Martirosyan stands out from the crowd as being the only really quality guy that Lara has fought in the last four years since his loss to Canelo, and that was a close. Martirosyan gave Lara a lot of problems in losing a 12 round unanimous decision to him two years ago in May 2016. That was the second time the two fighters had fought each. Their first fight in November 2012 ended in a 9th round technical raw. It was stopped due to Martirosyan receiving a bad cut over his left eye from a clash of heads. It was close at the time of the stoppage.

At this point it’s going to be a really difficult fight for Lara because of his long gap in between fighting good opposition. Hurd would have been a nightmare for Lara to fight even when he was younger and actively fighting the better fighters, but at this point in his career, he’s been out of it for too long in terms of fighting top level fighters and it might be a little late in the game for him to be taking on someone this big, powerful and young.

Lara sees Hurd as being a similar fighter as WBC junior middleweight champion Jermell Charlo, who he’ll need to face in his next fight if he wins this Saturday. Charlo is faster than Hurd, and less of a pure pressure fighter. Charlo is more of a boxer/puncher, who likes to set traps for his opponents. Hurd fights more like Gennady Golovkin with the way he breaks his opponents down with pressure.

The difference between those two is Golovkin starts pressuring his opponents from the 1st round. Hurd tends to wait until the second half of his fights before he starts to wear down his opposition. For Hurd to beat Lara, he’s going to have to start earlier in the contest, because he can’t let Lara build up a huge insurmountable lead in the first 6 rounds, because then he’ll get on his bike and look go run in the last six rounds.

“I don’t look at them any different,” said Lara. “They’re both to me kind of the same fighter. They both come up to the ring with a purpose and they’re trying to win. But at the end of the day, I’m the best fighter in this division. It’s been proven over years. So whether it was Hurd first, Charlo first, it didn’t matter. I’m just ready to rumble.”

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