Boxing: Of Crafty Southpaws and Identical Twins

The term “crafty southpaw” has been a part of the baseball lexicon since the first left-handed pitcher served up a slow-moving, well-placed breaking ball that had the poor schnook in the batter’s box flailing like someone trying to catch butterflies while wearing boxing gloves. Prime examples of the genre: Randy Jones, who won a Cy Young Award for the San Diego Padres in 1976 while striking out just 93 hitters in 315.1 innings, and Jamie Moyer, who pitched in the major leagues until he was 49, with stints with eight teams spread over 25 seasons. Moyer’s repertoire consisted of more junk than could be found in Fred Sanford’s back yard. With 13 knockouts among his 22 victories, it would be at least somewhat inaccurate to describe Cuban expatriate Erislandy Lara as the pugilistic equivalent of a Jones or a Moyer. When the opportunity presents itself, he can sting an opponent, although he has never had, nor will he ever have, the kind of one-punch power that Saul “Canelo” Alvarez recently demonstrated in sending Amir Khan to lullaby land. The 33-year-old Lara (22-2-2, 13 KOs) ostensibly is in the main event of a Showtime-televised championship tripleheader this Saturday, as he will defend his WBA and IBO super welterweight titles in an intriguing rematch with Vanes Marirosyan (36-2-1, 21 KOs) at The Cosmopolitan in Las Vegas. However, it is possible — and probably likely — that whatever he does will be overshadowed by the two co-featured bouts that precede his turn in the ring. Leading off the show will be the Jermell Charlo (27-0, 12 KOs)-John Jackson (20-2, 15 KOs) matchup for the vacant WBC super welterweight championship. Jermell will be attempting to join his identical twin brother, Jermall Charlo, as a world titlist. If he succeeds, it will make the middle bout of the tripleheader even more compelling. In that one, Jermall (23-0, 18 KOs) defends his junior middleweight belt against former WBA super welterweight champ Austin Trout (30-2, 17 KOs), who also can be reasonably described as a crafty southpaw. Should both of the handsome and charismatic Charlos win two days after their 26th birthday, they would become the first twins to have won world title bouts in the same weight class on the same night. The historical aspects of the Charlos’ Ripley’s Believe It Or Not careers may well have increased interest in their fights to such an extent that Lara, by consensus the best 154-pound practitioner of the pugilistic arts, will be relegated to a secondary role, even though his bout will close the show. During a 48-minute teleconference with the media on Thursday, all five of the other fighters in the three featured bouts got a chance to respond to questions. Lara, who was to have been on last, a position befitting his station, was disconnected just moments after he joined the call. He never got the opportunity to offer his thoughts about again mixing it up with Martiroysan. Their first meeting resulted in a technical draw back on Nov. 10, 2012, when the Armenian veteran sustained a bad cut in the ninth round from an unintentional head butt. Talk about bad karma. Then again, perhaps Lara is used to being overlooked and underappreciated, even though his back story is every bit as interesting as that of the Charlos. The …

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