Mauricio Lara Overwhelms Jose Sanmartin in KO Victory!
For their latest tour of duty, featherweight Mauricio “Bronco” Lara (25-2-1, 18 KO’s) faced the challenge of Jose “El General” Sanmartin (33-6-1, 21 KO’s). The two collided in the main event of a DAZN telecast being broadcast live from Plaza de Toro located in Mexico City. For Lara, this match had to be a rather big letdown. This is because Bronco was originally slated to lock horns with Regular WBA featherweight champion Leigh Wood.
Had everything gone according to plan then Lara would have fought Wood back on September 24. Yet, that was before Wood had to withdraw due to injury. To his credit though, Lara, 32, ranked #3 (IBF) and #12 (WBA), is coming off a sensational knockout win over Emilio Sanchez. Here, Bronco was looking to stay sharp and active versus his Colombian foe, Sanmartin.
The prizefight represented a huge opportunity for El General whose resume did not have much to write home about. In fact, Sanmartin, 40, has essentially lost to his more meaningful opponents and generally prevailed over lesser tiered opposition. Prior to the fight, Bronco promised his swift destruction.
RAGDOLLED
While he didn’t set a blistering pace, Lara certainly came out intent on fulfilling his promise. Throughout the opening period, he fired a river of menacing punches, and it was clear that he was focused on sinking in nasty body shots. In this pursuit he landed a number of belly-piercing punches. Sanmartin was game, but offensively speaking he did little outside of stand in front of Bronco, ear-muffed up and eat punches.
Sanmartin repeated his performance in the second but added a quality low blow to the equation. About a minute into the third, Lara clobbered Sanmartin with a thumping counter right that had him shuffling backwards like a Thriller zombie. To his credit, he beat the count, but clearly he was an impaired fighter.
Perceiving this, Bronco pounced on his wounded foe, pressed him to the ropes then finished him with a tight left to the temple. Upon impact, Sanmartin sank straight down like a retreating jack-in-the-box into his sixth professional loss. Obviously, Lara made good on his vow of wrath and destruction.
MORE MAYHEM TO COME?!
In his post-fight interview, Lara expressed interest in facing IBF featherweight champion Josh Warrington and Leigh Wood. But without question, he put the heavier hand on expressing his greater interest in a duel with Warrington due to it being a more personal matter.
By: Bakari Simpson
