Mauricio Lara Stripped Of WBA Title, Only Leigh Wood Can Win – Weigh-in Results

By Charles Brun: Mauricio Lara weighed in at 129.8 lbs and Leigh Wood (26-3, 16 KOs) at 125.9 lbs for their scheduled fight this Saturday, May 27th on DAZN at the Manchester Arena in Manchester, England. This is a nice pre-fight robbery of the worst kind.

Lara has been stripped of his WBA title due to the BBBof saying he can’t come in less than 128.5 lbs due to his check weight on Wednesday. If the fight goes ahead, Lara’s WBA featherweight title will be at stake only for Leigh Wood on Saturday.

Wood’s trainer Ben Davison isn’t sure that the fight will because he’s not happy with Lara outweighing his fighter by four pounds today. If the fight is off, Wood won’t get the opportunity to compete for the belt and would need to battle for it later against one of the contenders in the WBA’s rankings.

If Wood is lucky, that would be #3, Josh Warrington. As for Lara, who knows what would happen with him? If he’s going to have to deal with weight check issues from the BBBofC in the future, he would be better off not fighting in that country to avoid these kinds of issues.

Some fans think it’s unfair that the BBBofC did NOT allow Lara to try and make weight today because if this fight had occurred outside of the UK, he would have been allowed to try and make weight. It looks strange as if Lara was robbed of his WBA title by not being permitted to try and make weight.

Assuming the fight goes ahead on Saturday, Lara won’t be the WBA champion, even if he knocks out Wood again like he did last February. Moreover, if Lara wins, Wood will have an excuse to give his fans by saying he was fighting a much heavier guy and had no chance.

It’s unclear whether the fight will go ahead, as Lara (26-2-1, 19 KOs) came in high at 129.8 lbs after being told by the British Boxing Board of Control that he couldn’t weigh less than 128.5 lbs for the weigh-in due to his high weight during Wedneday’s weight-check.

In other words, Lara effectively lost his WBA featherweight title last Wednesday and wasn’t going to be allowed to attempt to make weight today out of safety concerns. Not surprisingly, Lara, knowing he had already lost his title due to the Board’s decision not to allow him to come in less than 128.5 today at the weigh-in, came in heavy at 129.8.

Weights:

Mauricio Lara – 129.8lbs
Leigh Wood – 125.9lbs

“The British Boxing Board of Control’s ruling is he can’t weigh less than 128 pounds,” said Eddie Hearn to Matchroom about Mauricio Lara for the weigh-in due to safety concerns. “I expect him to come in at 129.

“Some fighters will feel hard done by this because the Board isn’t allowing them to make championship weight. Clearly, in this situation, the Board Board of Control, this is the safety of the fighters. Mauricio Lara would have found it very difficult to make weight. We’ll never know the truth in that respect.

“They weren’t comfortable about the weight he was on Wednesday and made the decision, ‘We don’t want you to cut weight dangerously,’ and he will say, ‘Oh, I never got chance to make weight.’ The reality is, perhaps he wasn’t going to make championship weight, or he wasn’t going to do it safely, and obviously, that’s the greatest concern.”