Erislandy Lara is back on the hook to honor a long overdue mandatory title defense.
BoxingScene.com has confirmed that the WBA has ordered Lara to next defend his middleweight title versus Australia’s Michael Zerafa. Both parties were notified of the development on Monday via official letter, a copy of which was obtained by BoxingScene.com.
“WBA rules entitle the President and the Championships Committee at their discretion to define a mandatory period,” WBA Championship Committee chairman Carlos Chavez informed Lara, with Zerafa’s team copied on the letter. “Your Champion status was conditioned to nine (9) months mandatory defense period. Since you won the title on May 01, 2021, the next obligatory championship bout is past due from February 01, 2022, and shall box against the official contender Michael Zerafa.
“Pursuant to WBA rule C.13- Bout Limitations – the champion may not fight a boxer who is not the official challenger within sixty (60) days of the expiration of the mandatory defense period.”
The two sides must reach a deal by February 15 or else the fight would head to a purse bid hearing. Under that scenario, Lara (29-3-3, 17KOs) would be entitled to the favorable end of a 75-25 split as the reigning titleholder.
The ruling puts back into play a fight that was ordered last March.
Lara is represented by Premier Boxing Champions (PBC), who informed the WBA of its plans at the time for the Cuban export to next face Philadelphia’s Danny Garcia (37-3, 21KOs). The battle of two-division titlists would have taken place at a 155-pound catchweight, with Zerafa (31-4, 19KOs) to have received an undercard slot and assurance of a direct shot at the winner.
None of that has taken place, nor have any of the three fought since the ruling or at all in 2023.
Zerafa went public with his frustration over his signing with PBC through estranged manager Elvis Grant Philipps. The veteran contender from Melbourne—who turns 32 in March—has been benched since November 2022 and has not fought at all since his management team entered an agreement with PBC.
The failure to deliver a Lara-Garcia fight forced the WBA to re-order the mandatory title fight.
Lara has not fought since May 2022, when he stopped Ireland’s Gary ‘Spike’ O’Sullvan in the eighth round of his lone title defense to date. He claimed the ‘Regular’ version of the title in a May 2021 first-round knockout of Thomas ‘Cornflake’ LaManna and was upgraded to full titlist when Gennadiy Golovkin vacated both the WBA ‘Super’ and IBF titles.
Boxing Scene has learned that a tentative date of March 30 has been floated to resurrect Lara-Garcia. However, all of PBC’s plans have been placed on hold since Showtime Sports exited boxing last December after 37 years. PBC was the primary content provider for Showtime boxing since 2012.
No dates were yet attached to an earlier announcement that PBC has entered an agreement with Amazon Prime, where it plans to air 12-14 shows annually, with this year’s batch teased to begin in March.
TGB Promotions—the lead promoter for nearly all PBC events—has venue holds for March 2, March 9 and March 30 with the Nevada State Athletic Commission. However, they’ve previously held nearly a dozen dates going back to last November, from which just one has materialized—the November 25 David Benavidez-Demetrius Andrade Showtime Pay-Per-View event from Mandalay Bay’s Michelob ULTRA Arena in Las Vegas.
PBC has not staged an event since December 16, the final Showtime Championship Boxing card which aired from The Armory in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Any plans to move forward with Lara-Garcia at this stage would require the full cooperation of Zerafa. That move will likely require step-aside compensation, an undercard slot (which was guaranteed in the previous contract) and a written guarantee that he would face the winner within a reasonable time frame.
PBC could still move forward with Lara-Garcia even without Zerafa’s blessing, though it would likely require Lara to give up the WBA title, voluntarily or by force. Such a fight would lose whatever luster it would carry even with the belt on the line.
Should Lara opt to give up the title, Zerafa would be ordered to face the next highest ranked available contender. The number-two ranked WBA middleweight at the moment is Elijah Garcia (16-0, 13KOs), the red-hot 20-year-old southpaw from Phoenix who also fights under the PBC umbrella.
Jake Donovan is a senior writer for BoxingScene.com. X (formerly Twitter): @JakeNDaBox