Oldest boxing world champ wins by bizarre stoppage in ‘worst fight of the year’

The oldest world champion in boxing, Erislandy Lara, retained his WBA middleweight title against Danny Garcia in a snoozefest on Saturday night.

Garcia was returning to the ring for the first time since his majority decision win over Jose Benavidez Jr in July 2022.

The former two-weight world champion has been chronically inactive with only two fights in the last four years, and it showed.

Garcia looked very rusty in the ring and was made to fall short several times by Lara, who fought a disciplined fight on the outside behind his jab.

In the fourth round, Garcia landed just one punch in a complete shutout that saw Lara barely break a sweat.

A cacophony of boos began to ring around the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas as the low-output fight failed to impress the capacity crowd.

Garcia never looked confident in his work and appeared hesitant to let his hands go while Lara evaded his adversary’s half-hearted attacks and peppered him with straight shots.

It wasn’t a case of Lara looking good. In fact, he showed his age at times.

More so, it was a fight defined by Garcia’s lack of willingness to engage.

In the ninth round, Garcia took a knee after eating a left straight at the end of the frame, which didn’t appear to have much behind it, and was pulled out by his corner as he made his way back to his stool.

A bizarre end to a truly awful fight, perfectly summed up by Chris Mannix on commentary: “The middleweight division is dreadful right now, but this fight was somehow worse.”

In the immediate aftermath, fans flooded to social media to give their take on what was a difficult watch.

One fan wrote: “By far the worst fight of the year.”

Meanwhile, another took it one step further: “This is the worst fight I’ve ever seen.”

A third supporter tweeted: “Nice sparring match that. Almost fell asleep.”

And somebody else commented: “Lara lands a few punches and Garcia gives up, pathetic fight.”

In the immediate aftermath, Garcia refused to rule out retirement but didn’t choose to hang up his gloves there and then.

Meanwhile, Lara appeared to be happy with his performance and will move on to far stiffer tests.

At 41 years old, Lara is the oldest active world champion in boxing, two years the senior of unified light heavyweight champion Artur Beterbiev in second place.

All eyes now turn to the main event between Canelo Alvarez and Edgar Berlanga after a disappointing co-feature attraction.

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