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The Battle of East & West: Pacquiao vs. Hatton

May 2, 2009 MGM

Grand-Las Vegas, Nevada

Junior Middleweight (154 pounds) 4-Round Match:

Erislandy Lara (4-0, 3 KO's, 155 pounds) vs. Chris Gray (11-7, 1 KO's, 156 pounds)

Lara had a stellar amateur boxing career that peaked when he took home the gold medal for his native Cuba in the 152-pound division at the 2005 World Amateur Championships.

The Cuban's amateur boxing career ended when he tried to defect at the 2007 PanAm Games. However, the Brazilian government caught Lara and decided to send him back to Cuba. The Cuban government then banned Lara from boxing indefinitely. This forced Lara to defect to Mexico on a speed boat. From Mexico, Lara went to Germany and began his professional career with a 4-round unanimous decision victory over Ivan Maslov on July 4, 2008 at the Bueyuek Anadolu Hotel in Ankara, Turkey.

Lara's last match was a knockout victory at 1:09 of round 1 over Keith Gross on February 20, 2009 at the University Center Arena in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. After shaking off the rust from being out of the gym for about a year against Maslov, Lara has stopped his last 3 opponents in the first round.

Lara is unranked by The Ring magazine and ranked by boxrec.com as the number 203 boxer in the world at 154 pounds.

Gray is here to lose. He only holds 1 win over an undefeated boxer. That opponent, Jared Hidalgo, entered the match 0-0-1, and is Gray's only knockout victory. The knockout in that match came at 2:20 of round 4 on November 26, 2004 at the Grand Casino in Gulfport, Mississippi. That was Gray's second professional match.

The Baton Rouge, Louisiana resident has the potential to go a few rounds in this match. Gray only has 2 knockout losses, and he has gone the distance in his last 6 matches. However in the match before that, Gray was knocked out by Ed Paredes at 2:20 of round 6 on December 11, 2007 at the Crazy Horse Saloon in Miami, Florida. Therefore, Gray should be durable enough to last until round 2 or 3.

Gray's last match was a 4-round unanimous decision over Maximino Cuevas on February 13, 2009 at Miccosukee Resort & Gaming in Miami, Florida. That was a rematch of a match the 2 had on November 17, 2007 at the Club Med Sandpiper in Port Saint Lucie, Florida. Gray won the first match via 6-round unanimous decision. Cuevas used the intervening time to go 1-2 with both losses coming by second round knockout. Gray used the intervening time to move up in weight and officially weighed in 6.5 pounds heavier then Cuevas.

Gray is unranked by The Ring and ranked by boxrec.com as the number 135 boxer in the world at 154 pounds.

At 26-years-old, Lara is 7 years younger then the 33-year-old Gray. Gray has the height advantage standing 5' 10" tall, while Lara stands 5' 9" tall. Lara has the reach advantage with a 24" arm length measured from the armpit to the end of the fist, compared to the Gray's 23.5" arm length. Both boxers have unofficially rehydrated to 162 pounds approaching match time. Lara will box out of the southpaw stance, and Gray will employ the orthodox stance.

The Nevada state rules are in effect for this match. The only major change from the unified rules of boxing is that the match will go to the scorecards after 3 rounds, if it has to be stopped due to a cut caused by an accidental foul instead of after 4 rounds. All of the judges keeping official score of this match from ringside are from Nevada. The referee is Tony Weeks. Harold Lederman will be HBO's unofficial scorekeeper for this event.

Lara uses his very accurate punching to win round 1, 10-9. Gray's body is very soft and Lara is targeting it with straight left hands. Lara wins round 1 on Lederman's scorecard, 10-9. The Cuban easily wins round 2 on Lederman and my scorecard, 10-9. Lara has shown a very bad habit in the first 2 rounds of this match. He regularly drops both hands to adjust his trunks, while he is close to his opponent. However, Gray is not attempting to punch while Lara's guard is dropped. A better opponent will take advantage of all the opportunities Lara gives them to land free punches. This is also counter-productive for Lara, because he is pulling his trunks down, lowering his belt line. At the end of round 2, the top of Lara's trunks are probably 3" lower then they were when the match began. That means he is going to have a harder time getting low blow calls against his opponent. Gray appears to throw more punches in round 3 then he has in any of the other rounds. However, Lara still wins round 3 easily on Lederman and my scorecard, 10-9. Lara wins round 4 on Lederman and my scorecard, 10-9. We both have Lara winning the match, 40-36.

The official decision courtesy of the legendary Michael Buffer is that the judges have scored this match: 40-36, 40-36, 40-36, all for the winner by unanimous decision and still undefeated, Erislandy Lara. The win moves Lara to 5-0 with 3 wins coming by way of knockout.

The final punchstat numbers have Lara landing 108 of the 217 total punches he threw, for a very good 50% total connect percentage. Lara landed 69 of the 106 power punches he threw, for an excellent 65% power connect percentage Gray only landed 11 of the 149 total punches he threw, for a horrific 7% total connect percentage. That works out to less then 3 total punches landed per round. That shatters every record for futility in a match that has been recapped. Gray landed 10 of the 54 power punches he threw, for a 19% power connect percentage.

Lara is already very polished, because of his outstanding amateur background. He is great defensively. Lara showed the ability to punch very accurately in this match. He still has some flaws, primarily the bad habit of playing with his trunks. Lara could also work at a faster pace against this type of opponent to potentially get a knockout. Otherwise there was very little to criticize about his performance in this match. Lara's next match is listed as an 8-round match against Jessie Nicklow on May 22 at the Fountainbleau Hotel in Miami, Florida as part of an ESPN Friday Night Fights event.

Gray was completely over-matched against Lara. He showed more skills then expected by not delivering the knockout the promoters had hoped he would. However, Gray belongs boxing on the undercards of local club shows, not on PPV. That is likely where his next match will be.

The undercard of this PPV was dreadful.