By Jeff Aronow: Erislandy Lara has vacated his WBA 154-lb ‘regular’ title and chosen to keep his WBA ‘regular’ 160-lb.
This comes after the World Boxing Association told Lara (28-3-3,16 KOs) on Monday that he had until Tuesday of this week to vacate one of his two ‘regular’ titles at 154 or 160.
If Lara didn’t respond to the WBA by Tuesday to let them know which of his two titles he’s vacating, they would choose for him, according to Dan Rafael.
Lara wants WBA to order Murata fight
With Lara deciding to keep the WBA 160-lb ‘regular’ title, he’s increasing his chances for a big-money fight.
Lara now wants the WBA to order a match between him and WBA ‘Super World’ 160-lb champion Ryota Murata.
This fight would be a move by the WBA to reduce the number of titles with the sanctioning body, which is getting rid of their interim and ‘regular’ in each division.
With that being said, Lara won’t get a straight shot against Murata in his next fight because he already has plans to face IBF middleweight champion Gennadiy ‘GG’ Golovkin in a unification fight in December in Japan.
That fight still hasn’t been scheduled, though, and we’ll have to see if it happens. If Golovkin vs. Murata clash doesn’t take place, the WBA will order Murata to face Lara.
Assuming the GGG-Murata fight does take place, Lara, 38, will need to wait patiently for the smoke to clear before he gets a shot at the winner.
GGG unlikely to face Erislandy
If Golovkin beats Murata, it’s highly doubtful that he will agree to fight Lara. Indeed, the chances of Golovkin agreeing to fight a crafty southpaw like Lara are next to impossible.
If Golovkin beats Lara, he’ll likely vacate the WBA title, and then World Boxing Association may choose to elevate Erislandy to the ‘Super World’ 160-lb champ outside of the ring.
Lara must hope that Golovkin gets old and Murata is able to beat him in December because he has a much better shot at fighting the Japanese fighter than GGG.
It’s not surprising that Lara vacated his WBA 154-lb title because the best he could hope for is a fight with Jermell Charlo, but he could be waiting a long time for that fight.
The 35-year-old Murata (16-2, 13 KOs) hasn’t fought in a year and a half since his successful title defense against Steven Butler in December 2019.
If Murata does fight Golovkin in December, he’ll have been out of the ring for two years. With that much time out of the ring, it’s surprising the WBA hasn’t stripped Murata.
The WBA stripped Manny Pacquiao when he’d been out of the ring for two years, so it makes sense for them to do the same thing with Murata.
“Per sources, Lara has vacated the WBA regular 154 titles and opted to keep the WBA 160 regular title. In doing so Lara team asked for the WBA to order a fight between Lara and 160 super titleholder Ryota Murata. #boxing,” said @DanRafael1