Erislandy Lara To Stay at Middleweight and Seek a Fight Against Ryota Murata
There continues to be reverberations from the World Boxing Association’s (WBA) filtration process. On August 31st, the sanctioning body announced that Erislandy “The American Dream” Lara (28-3-3, 16 KOs) has decided to vacate the WBA “regular” junior middleweight title. In the process, he will keep the “regular” middleweight title. The WBA sent a letter to the multiple-time world champion on July 28th demanding he decides on what belt he plans to hold.
Lara won the “regular” middleweight title in his last outing; a one-round KO over Thomas Lamanna in May of 2021. Moving forward, he wants a crack at WBA “super” champion Ryota Murata (16-2, 13 KOs).
Interestingly enough, Murata has not fought since December of 2019. Yet, the WBA has not forced his hand and called for him to either defend the belt against a mandatory challenger or vacate the title. This could be due to previous negotiations to unify with IBF champion Gennady Golovkin. Although, there hasn’t been any word on if negotiations are positive.
A potential fight against the Japanese fighter will probably not happen until early-mid 2022. That is considering, he faces Golovkin in December as expected.
By: Michael Wilson Jr.
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