The World Boxing Association (WBA) ordered the bout between middleweight super champion Gennady Golovkin and “regular” champion Erislandy Lara, as part of the WBA world title reduction plan. The WBA Championships Committee granted a 15-day negotiation period to both fighters, which began on February 8 and will end on February 23.
Originally, Golovkin was supposed to face the IBF mandatory challenger due to the mandatory rotation of fighters between organizations, but GGG relinquished the IBF title today and for that reason the WBA has decided to order the fight against Lara.
Golovkin received special permission to move up to super middleweight and face Saul Alvarez last September. That ruling specified that he was to defend his middleweight crown in his next bout against Lara to determine the unified champion of the categories.
In case no agreement is reached or any of the parties refuses to negotiate, the WBA Championships Committee may submit the fight to bidding with a split of 75% for Golovkin and 25% for Lara.
Good – we need these ‘regular’ belts gone.
Daniel, we need the WBA gone.
Better yet all of them gone.
Not a good fight for GGG.
maybe one more big fight for GGG? Lara is not it
maybe Mungia? is that big? idk.
ZZzzZZZzzZZZZzz Will fall asleep in 2!
The more belts that disappear the better. I think GGG can handle Lara, I ‘m not sure how much left he has or wants to prove but GGG is still quite a force to be reckoned with. I wish Canelo had come down to face him instead of GGG moving up, it would have been a better and more competitive fight, but that’s neither here nor there at this point. I just want to see GGG go out on top. He’s a legit champion who has earned himself a place in the HOF for sure.
I wonder if PBC maybe made GGG some big offer to fight Lara, but I don’t want to see that fight. I’d take GGG at this point, but I don’t think it’d be very fun to watch, the last I heard about Lara – he was looking to fight Danny Garcia actually and the WBA had even given Garcia a ranking for the fight. Would much rather see GGG – Munguia.
Now that the IBF is vacant, the top two contenders are Esquiva Falcao, who won the eliminator and MICHAEL ZERAFA and, I’ll say it again, I have no clue what Zerafa has done to be ranked that high. After Lara, Zerafa’s also ranked #1 by the WBA.
this is the problem with boxing today. these organizations, though I think they do meet together sometimes, they reallly don’t work together. If this were a true reduction plan, all these organizations work together to get one champion. But they don’t . These groups should also make the boxers defend their titles every 6 months, as i think it used to be. Now you see one a year, or as in Mr. Charlo’s case, not at all.
So once again GGG avoids Munguia
There are so many damn champions I’m not sure these sanctioning bodies know who the champions are.
After his dream fights with Alvarez, GGG is done. Canelo is what he lived for and turned down other big fights at his weight. He collected checks with HBO hype train fighting B class middleweights and cashed out with Canelo fights. Now he’s too old to fight the best
Boring ugly fight, no big drama show here
Does the title reduction plan take the length of a long car loan, or a short 15 yr home loan, or a full 30 yr loan? 2 belts forward, 2 belts take back, and repeat.
It’s like the WBA if they made a absolute mess of your home, and then bragged about slowly cleaning up one room at a time. But only 1 room every 6 months. You have to live in the wake of their destruction for many years while they take their time to clean up the mess they caused. And they charge you each time they visit to clean up their original mess.
I read an article recently that described Lara as a “semi retired fighter”. That’s how meaningless these regular titles are. A guy could be “semi retired” while still being a world champion.