Janibek Alimkhuly and Erislandy Lara will reportedly be preventing in a three-belt middleweight unification conflict, doubtlessly on December 6 on PBC on pay-per-view. This may be a part of the Isaac ‘Pitbull’ Cruz vs. Lamont Roach card.
Janibek’s Street to Undisputed
IBF and WBO middleweight champion Alimkhanuly (17-0, 12 KOs) will face WBA champion Lara (31-3-3, 19 KOs) in a battle that may put the winner in an amazing place to face both Terence Crawford or WBC champion Carlos Adames.
Crawford Lurking at 160
Given Crawford’s behavior of preventing solely yearly, it’s probably he’ll sit and wait till the winner of the Janibek-Lara battle battles Adames for the 160-lb undisputed championship. That means, Crawford can slide in and battle for all 4 belts directly like he did at 168 towards Canelo Alvarez with out having to do all of the back-breaking laborious work of preventing twice for the titles.
Lara, 42, will likely be coming off a 15-month break when he faces Janibek, 32, on December 6. The Cuban Erislandy final fought towards Danny Garcia, stopping him within the ninth spherical on September 14, 2024. For a fighter in his 40s, Lara seemed fairly good, however he wasn’t going through one of many upper-level fighters at middleweight. The previous two-division world champion Garcia is now only a shell of the fighter he as soon as was throughout his prime 9 years in the past.
Adames Holds the Key
The 2016 Olympic bronze medalist, Janibek, has been pushing Carlos Adames actually laborious for the final couple of years, since 2023, attempting to influence him to face him. It hasn’t labored, and may not ever.
“Information simply posted that you just’re going to get Janibek going through Lara. Then he’s [Janibek] goes to have three belts,” mentioned Tim Bradley on his YouTube channel, reacting to at present’s report of middleweight champions Janibek Alimkhanuly and Erislandy Lara in talks for a unification conflict in December.
“You then’ve received [WBC middleweight champion Carlos] Adames. I believe Janibek has received the chance to stitch up all 4 belts and change into undisputed at middleweight. You’ve received Terence Crawford speaking about taking place to 160. We would get one other undisputed match for Crawford.”
If Adames thinks there’s an opportunity that he can land that Crawford battle, it’s uncertain that he’s going to wish to danger his mushy conceal preventing the winner of the Janibek vs. Lara battle. Why would he? He can simply sit again and await Crawford to look in his path for a giant payday.
