WBA middleweight champion Erislandy Lara (31-3-3, 19 KOs) dominated Danny Garcia (37-4, 21 KOs), taking advantage of his inactivity and lack of size to stop him in the ninth round in the chief support bout on Saturday night at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
(Credit: Ryan Hafey & Rey Del Rio/Premier Boxing Champions)
In the last seconds of the ninth, the 41-year-old Cuban Lara reached out and tapped Garcia with a left to the jaw, sending him to the canvas as if he’d been shot. Garcia got back up right away as the round ended.
In between rounds, Garcia’s father let the referee, Thomas Taylor, know that they wanted the fight to be stopped. the time of the stoppage was at 3:00 of round nine.
“It wasn’t my night. I tried to be great, but it wasn’t my night. I had a long layoff,” said Danny Garcia after the fight.
Garcia looked like he didn’t want to be there tonight, because he was staying on the outside the entire contest, not throwing punches. He was letting Lara peck away with single punches, mostly jabs, and trying not to get hit.
Both fighters landed in the single digits in every round, and it was obvious that this was a poor job of matchmaking by the promoters for this event. Virtually the entire undercard was like this, with the A-side fighters dominating overmatched opposition that didn’t belong inside the same ring as them.
For the most part, the crowd was patient and choosing not to boo until the ninth round. The 36-year-old former two-division world champion Garcia hadn’t fought in two years, and he’d never fought at middleweight before.
Once the crowd started booing, they really let Danny and Lara know why they thought of them. Even after the fight, the crowd continued booing when Garcia was being interviewed. They did not appreciate paying money and taking time to see this kind of performance in the chief support bout.
Lara has always been a low output fighter with a Floyd Mayweather Jr. potshot type of style, and he’s only rarely had entertaining fights during his long career. That was when he fought oppoisition that attacked him nonstop.
Tonight, Danny Garcia was not the type of opponent that would bring out the best in Lara. PBC should have known that because Danny has looked washed up for at least seven years since his loss to Keith Thurman in 2017.
Garcia didn’t say if he plans on retiring after the fight, but he should consider it. He doesn’t have enough left for him to compete at 154 and definitely not 160. The only weight class where Garcia excelled was at 140, and he hasn’t fought in that weight class in 10 years since 2014. He’s too old to return to 140 at this point in his career.
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