By Charles Brun: Mauricio Lara is ready for war this Saturday night, February 18th, when he invades the Motorpoint Arena, Nottingham, England, to rip the WBA featherweight title away from champion Leigh Wood in front of his fans. The Wood vs. Lara fight will be shown live on DAZN this Saturday.
Lara can’t wait to get inside the ring for his long overdue title shot, and he plans on making the most of his opportunity.
During the entire build-up to this fight, Wood talks about how he will meet Lara head in the trenches for a fight to the finish, but few boxing fans have faith in him doing so.
One hopes that Wood doesn’t go the Josh Warrington route and elect to take the easy way out by head-butting Lara to pieces, as we saw what happened the last time he fought in the UK in Leeds.
Lara an unstoppable machine
Wood has got to know that he won’t last more than a handful of rounds against the younger, stronger, and more talented Lara if he attempts to match him punch for punch.
The powerful Mexican warrior has heard the bold talk before from Wood’s fellow countryman Josh Warrington, and he had to humiliate him in front of his British fans, beating him black & blue, leaving on the canvas in the ninth round in February 2021.
Lara (25-2-1, 18 KOs) has listened to Wood (26-2, 16 KOs) mouth off, saying he’s going to knock him out within six rounds, and he wants to see him try to back up his tough talk.
Undercard
- Dalton Smith vs. Billy Allington
- Gary Cully vs. Wilfredo Flores
- Cheavon Clarke vs. TBA
- Gamal Yafai vs. Diego Alberto Ruiz
- Kieron Conway vs. Jorge Silva
- Nico Leivars vs. Alberto Motos
- Junaid Bostan vs. TBA
What does Leigh Wood have up his sleeves?
Unfortunately, it’s easy to predict what Wood has up his sleeves for his game plan on Saturday night to defend his WBA strap against the obscenely powerful 24-year-old Lara.
Charles Brun sees the old trickster Wood attaching himself to Lara like a sea lamprey and won’t let go until the referee peels him off. If Lara hasn’t prepared himself to defeat Wood’s lamprey-esque clinching, it will be a long night for him on Saturday night.
Instead of going to war with Lara like he’d been talking about, Wood will game the system by clinching him all night.
What we’re going to see from the aging 34-year-old Wood is the old punch & grab technique to keep Lara from crushing him with his power. As such, what Wood will be doing is throwing one or two shots and then diving forward to grab Lara to keep him from retaliating with his huge shots.
“He’s a man [Leigh Wood] who talks a lot outside of the ring. He says I won’t make it past the sixth round. I’m going in ready for war; let’s see if he’s able to deliver what he promised,” said Mauricio Lara to the WBA about his fight against featherweight champion Leigh Wood this Saturday night a the Motorpoint Arena in Nottingham, England.
“I have heard this many times, and here is the ‘Bronco’ Lara. We are going to take advantage of the opportunity as I did with [Josh] Warrington when he was #1 [at featherweight],” Mauricio continued.
“We know what it’s like to fight outside the country, and, as I said, England is like my second home.”
Wood has a lot of knockouts on his twelve-year professional record, but he’s never stopped anyone at the elite or even the A-level. His best knockouts were against Can Xu and Michael Conlan, and those aren’t A-level fighters.
When Wood has stepped up against better opposition, he’s been beaten in losses to Gavin McDonnell and Jazza Dickens. Lara is world’s better than those two guys, which tells you all you need to know about what’s in store for Wood this Saturday night.
Hopefully, Wood doesn’t go the billy goat route we saw from Warrington to avoid getting knocked out in front of his fans in Nottingham.