Erislandy Lara Batters Ramon Alvarez, Wins WBA “Regular” Junior Middleweight Title
In the span of 36 hours, Ramon Alvarez went from preparing to fight for a secondary world title to missing weight and getting knocked out in less than two complete rounds.
Erislandy Lara took advantage of a weakened Alvarez and stopped him in the second round of the main event of a PBC on FOX card from Minneapolis. With the win, Lara became the new WBA “Regular” junior middleweight champion.
After a slow start from Alvarez in the first round, Lara sought to end the fight in the following round. Lara threw a series of left hands that nearly sent Alvarez through the ropes and outside of the ring. Alvarez managed to avoid getting counted but would get stopped by Lara just seconds later.
.@Laraboxing lands a flurry of punches and sends @Inocente02Ramon to the ropes in RD2! #LaraAlvarez #PBConFox pic.twitter.com/zudzAV0L2Y
— PBC (@premierboxing) September 1, 2019
The controversy surrounding the fight came from the fact that Alvarez, whose brother is middleweight world champion Canelo Alvarez, missed weight by nearly five pounds the day before the fight, making him ineligible to win the title. Ramon and his team would go on to claim that a scale they used before the weigh-ins was not calibrated properly and believed he was much closer to the target weight of 154 pounds than what the reality ended up being.
As Lara now holds the WBA’s secondary championship, Julian Williams holds not just the WBA “Super” version of the title but also the IBF title as well. Williams is likely headed for a rematch against former world champion Jarrett Hurd before the end of the year.
