(Photo credit: Lucas Noonan/Premier Boxing Champions) By Tim Fletcher: WBA World junior middleweight champion Erislandy Lara (21-2-2, 12 KOs) successfully made weight on Tuesday for his title defense against 39-year-old #8 WBA Jan Zaveck (35-3, 19 KOs) on Wednesday night on Premier Boxing Champions on ESPN from the Hialeah Park Race Track, in Hialeah, Florida.
The 32-year-old Lara weighed in at 153.6 pounds for his third and possible final defense of his WBA title. Lara has made noise recently about wanting to move up to the middleweight division to campaign as a 160lb fighter and go after the top names in the division like Gennady Golovkin, Peter Quillin, Daniel Jacobs, Billy Joe Saunders and Andy Lara.
For his part, former IBF welterweight champion Zaveck weighed in at 153.2lbs.
The promoter for the card is Warrior’s Boxing.
This is a voluntary defense for Lara, and it’ll likely be an easy defense for him like his last two defenses of his WBA belt against over-matched opposition Delvin Rodriguez and Ishe Smith. Zaveck will likely put up more of a struggle than Rodriguez, but not much more. Zaveck is up there in age at 39 now, and he’s not a genuine 154lb fighter.
He’s someone who spent his best years of his career at 147. Zaveck only moved up in weight in 2014, and has beaten weak opposition in Sasha Yengoyan and Ferenc Hafner. At 5’7 ½”, Zaveck doesn’t figure to have the size to be competing against the likes of Lara or some of the other taller 154lb fighters like Austin Trout, Jermall Charlo, Jermell Charlo, Demetrius Andrade, Vanes Martirosyan, Anthony Mundine, Liam Smith, and Michel Soro.
Lara really needs to step up the level of his competition if he’s going to stay at 154. It’s unknown if Lara will be moving up to middleweight after the Zaveck fight or not. But if he doesn’t choose to stay at 154, then he needs to have his adviser Al Haymon select for better opposition for his voluntary title defenses, because surely he can do better than Zaveck, Ishe Smith and Delvin Rodriguez.
Fighting guys like that will ensure that Lara holds onto his WBA 154lb title longer than he might otherwise do, but it also will keep him from ever picking up much of a fan base in the United States. If the idea is for Lara to become a huge name in America, then he needs to be fighting the best opposition each time he fights.
If he or his adviser is worried that he might not have talent to best contenders at junior middleweight, then he should keep fighting the likes of Zaveck, Smith and Rodriguez. But with the way Lara talks about himself, he seems very confident of beating all the top names at 154. If he really is confident then he needs to defend his WBA title against guys like Julian Williams, Willie Nelson, Demetrius Andrade and Jermell Charlo.
The Lara vs. Zaveck fight card will start at 8:00 p.m. ET/5:00 p.m. PT on Premier Boxing Champions on ESPN.
Other weights on the card:
Emmanuel Rodriguez 118 vs. Eliecer Aquino 116.4
Yasmany Consuegra 234.4 vs. John Wesley Nofire 231.2
Yudel Jhonson 156.4 vs. Daquan Arnett 157
Dennis Galarza 136.4 vs. Juan Ramon Solis 143.6
Jose F. Quezada 140.8 vs. Daniel Lorenzana 139
Gregory Moore 144.2 vs. Jeff Souffrant 145.4
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