Lara stops Wood with 'left hook from the heavens' to win featherweight title

Down on all three cards, Mexican puncher rallies for 7th-round TKO

Feb 19, 2023

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Mauricio Lara and Leigh Wood, both powerful punchers with action styles, promised ahead of time that their fight would not go past the six-round halfway point. They were only slightly off.

Lara, trailing on all three scorecards in their rough, grinding, slugfest landed the sort of perfect and powerful left hook Joe Frazier would have been proud of to stop Wood in the seventh round and take his WBA featherweight world title on Saturday on DAZN in the Matchroom Boxing main event at sold-out Motorpoint Arena in Wood’s hometown of Nottingham, England.

“To become world champion is a dream I’ve had since I was 8 years of age,” Lara said through an interpreter. “Leigh Wood is a great champion. He hits really hard. He’s an intelligent boxer. I’m just absolutely delighted.”

It was the expected shootout from the start but it was Wood who emerged from the first round with blood streaming down his face from a cut over his left eye caused by an accidental head butt.

But Wood (26-3, 16 KOs), 34, who was making his second title defense and first since becoming the lone WBA titleholder in the division, did not allow the blood flow to take him out of his game. He continued to press forward as did Lara as they went to battle. Both landed heavy shots to the head and body.

There was a big right hand from Lara that rocked Wood late in the second round and Wood landed his own clean rights and counter shots in the third.

Early in the fourth round, Lara rocked Wood with a left-right combination and Wood retaliated soon after with a flush right hand.

Wood, who was originally scheduled to fight Lara on Sept. 24 but had to postpone because of a biceps injury, was effective with a body attack, blunting Lara’s advances in the fifth round with a series of body blows that backed him up.

“To be honest they didn’t hurt me. I definitely felt them,” Lara said of the body shots.

Going into the seventh round, Wood was ahead 59-55, 58-56 and 58-56 but no lead is ever safe with Lara, a fearless aggressor with a big punch.

Finally, late in the seventh round of the grueling fight, Lara and Wood both threw simultaneous left hooks but it was the one from Lara that connected flush on Wood’s chin and he went down hard — flat on his back in the center of the ring. He quickly rolled over, got to his feet, did a little hop in an effort to steady himself and took the rest of the mandatory eight-count from referee Michael Alexander.

Alexander wiped Wood’s gloves off and was set to resume the fight after Wood quickly responded to his command for him to put his gloves up. But at that moment Ben Davison, Wood’s trainer, surprisingly threw a white towel at Alexander to signal for him to stop the fight, which he did with only six seconds remaining in the round.

Wood was incredulous, immediately turning to Davison and shouting at him as he walked to his corner, clearly a sign that he had his wits about him and could have carried on. With Lara on the other side of the ring and so little time remaining it was unlikely Lara would have gotten off another punch and Wood would have had the rest period to further recover.

But it was too late. Lara (26-2-1, 19 KOs), 24, of Mexico, had won the 126-pound title, taking down another popular Brit on home soil in knockout fashion, just as he had done in the ninth round to heavy favorite and then-undefeated former featherweight titlist Josh Warrington in their first fight in 2021, the victory that launched Lara on the world stage.

“It means a great deal to me to have this belt around my waist,” Lara said.

Wood said he was OK to continue and wanted to keep fighting.

“I’m a fighter, you know? I want to go until I can’t see anything anymore,” Wood said. “Congratulations to Mauricio Lara. Great fighter. Made a mistake and I paid for it.”

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As the titleholder going into a non-mandatory fight, Wood has the contractual right to a rematch with Lara.

“Firstly, I want to say well done to Leigh Wood for taking a fight like this. Everyone knows how dangerous Mauricio Lara is,” Matchroom Boxing promoter Eddie Hearn said. “I want to say congratulations to Mauricio Lara. It’s a massive win for Mexico. I know what it meant to him. Leigh Wood has a rematch clause as a champion going into this fight. I believe he will want to exercise that rematch because it was a tremendous fight, a tremendous performance.”

When asked if wanted an immediate rematch, Wood gave a one-word reply: “Absolutely,” later adding, “I’ll be back.”

According to CompuBox statistics, Lara landed 89 of 275 punches (32 percent) and Wood landed 88 of 227 (39 percent). Each man had the edge in punches landed in three rounds and they were even in one.

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The fight was Wood’s second memorable battle in a row. Eleven months ago, in the same arena, he defended the WBA “regular” title in a thrilling fight with Michael Conlan in which Wood, down on all three scorecards and having traded knockdowns with Conlan, rallied in the 12^th round to retain the belt by knocking him out of the ring for the knockout of the year and what was picked by many outlets as the 2022 fight of the year, including the Boxing Writers Association of America.

Lara may have to face Wood again in his next fight but he would prefer to have another go with Warrington, who was ringside. He beat Warrington easily in their first fight but the second fight ended in an unsatisfying second-round technical draw when Lara suffered a cut from an accidental head butt and could not continue.

‘”Of course, I’d like that trilogy,” Lara said. “I want to go on for more belts and get as many as I can as well. It’s really up to Eddie Hearn to make that decision.”

Wood will be the one to make the call if there is a rematch with Lara but whatever he decides Hearn said Lara won’t lack for significant fights.

“You’ve got Josh Warrington down there (at ringside),” Hearn said. “Maybe these two (Lara and Warrington) fight in the interim, maybe Leigh Wood fights the winner, but he has the right right now contractually, and I though he was cruising the fight at that stage.

“Rough start, but Mauricio Lara just came with a left hook from the heavens and that’s why this sport is the most dramatic and the most exciting sport of them all. Tonight belongs to Mauricio Lara.”