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WBA Starts Year Off Sloppily As Erislandy Lara Continues To Remain Champion Despite Not Fighting For Over A Year

WBA Starts Year Off Sloppily As Erislandy Lara Continues To Remain Champion Despite Not Fighting For Over A Year featured image
Erislandy Lara last fought against Gary O'Sullivan during the WBA World Middleweight Championship on Saturday night at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn of New York City, United States on May 28, 2022. (Photo by Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

Cuban-American WBA middleweight champion Erislandy Lara continues to remain a champion despite not having fought since May of 2022. With almost two years approaching since his last fight, a resolution by the WBA continues to remain absent as Lara enters the year of 2024 without any opponent to face, despite far exceeding the time by which he should have defended his title.

In March, Erislandy Lara (29-3-3, 17 KO’s) was promoted to world champion following a two-year run as the WBA ‘regular’ middleweight champion since 2021. Despite the WBA ordering Lara to face Australian contender Michael Zerafa (31-4, 19 KO’s), Lara went on to receive an exemption by the WBA to face former welterweight world champion Danny Garcia (37-3, 21 KO’s). However, this fight has not emerged since reports of the potential fight surfaced in May of 2023. The match between Lara and Garcia had previously been reported to be set for August 5th.

As such, the designated period of nine months for a champion to defend their title against a contender has passed. The WBA’s own rules state that a fighter needs to defend their titles within nine months. Taking into account that Lara officially became a world champion in March of 2023, the period for the Cuban-American to make his title defense has passed.

WBA Starts Year Off Sloppily As Erislandy Lara Continues To Remain Champion Despite Not Fighting For Over A Year image 1
The WBA’s section C.10 of their rules describing the time periods for title defenses of WBA champions.

As the WBA has made no new announcements as to this situation, Zerafa continues to remain the “official contender” or mandatory contender to Erislandy Lara. Currently, he is still positioned at #1 on the WBA’s ranking boards.

More significantly, the WBA counts the ‘regular’ title as an official world title and has therefore officially set Lara’s first title win to have been in 2021 when he defeated American contender Thomas LaManna to capture the WBA ‘regular’ middleweight title for the second time of his career. His last defense of the title occurred on the 28th of May in 2022 when Lara defeated Irishman Gary O’Sullivan.

WBA Starts Year Off Sloppily As Erislandy Lara Continues To Remain Champion Despite Not Fighting For Over A Year image 2
The WBA middleweight (160 lbs) rankings displaying when Erislandy Lara last won, and defended, his WBA title.

Lara’s fight with O’Sullivan was his first and last defense of his WBA title; though it was then considered a ‘regular’ title. According to the WBA’s own rules, this makes it approximately 13 months since Lara last defended his title; 4 months past the expected time a champion is required to make a title defense.

According to the WBA’s own rules, stripping Lara would make all the more sense, especially given he already received an exemption to fight Danny Garcia in August of 2023 only for this potential fight to be mysteriously cancelled. Reports by BoxingScene’s Keith Idec later suggested the fight would occur in December on an event organized by the PBC (to whom both fighters are signed to), but the match never surfaced.

The WBA’s insistence to not hold Erislandy Lara responsible in any manner, despite him not having been reported to be facing any issues such as injuries, does not seem to have changed at the start of this current year of 2024. While many organizations create goals for themselves prior to the new year, it appears that the WBA’s goal seems to continue to riddle in ineptitude or indecision and seek not to enforce their own rules.

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