WBA middleweight champion Erislandy Lara (31-3-3, 19 KOs) dominated Danny Garcia (37-4, 21 KOs), taking advantage of his inactivity and small size to stop him in the ninth round of their main support bout Saturday night at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
In the final seconds of the ninth round, the 41-year-old Cuban Lara slammed a left into Garcia’s jaw, sending him to the mat as if he had been shot. Garcia got back up immediately as the round ended.
Between rounds, Garcia’s father told referee Thomas Taylor that he wanted the fight to be stopped. The fight was stopped at 3:00 in the ninth round.
“It wasn’t my night. I tried to be great, but it wasn’t my night. I had a long break,” Danny Garcia said after the fight.
Garcia looked like he didn’t want to be there tonight, as he stayed out of the way and didn’t throw punches throughout the fight. He let Lara throw single punches, mostly jabs, and tried not to get hit.
Both fighters finished in single digits in every round, and it was obvious that the promoters of this event had done a poor job of matchmaking. Almost the entire preliminary round was like this, with the A-side fighters dominating their inferior opponents who did not belong in the same ring as them.
The crowd was mostly patient and refrained from booing until the ninth round. Garcia, a 36-year-old former two-weight world champion, had not fought in two years and had never fought at middleweight before.
When the crowd started booing, they really let Danny and Lara know why they were thinking of them. Even after the fight, the crowd continued to boo when Garcia was being interviewed. They didn’t appreciate paying money and taking their time to see that kind of performance in the main support fight.
Lara has always been an underpowered fighter with a style reminiscent of Floyd Mayweather Jr., and he rarely had entertaining fights during his long career. That was when he fought opponents who attacked him incessantly.
Tonight, Danny Garcia was not the type of opponent that would bring out the best in Lara. PBC should have known this, because Danny looked worn out for at least seven years since his loss to Keith Thurman in 2017.
Garcia has not said if he plans to retire after the fight, but he should consider it. He no longer has enough strength to compete in the 154 weight class, and certainly not in the 160 weight class. The only weight class Garcia excelled in was the 140 weight class, and he has not fought in that weight class for 10 years since 2014. He is too old to return to the 140 weight class at this point in his career.
