Highlights: Leigh Wooden regains his WBA title by defeating Mauricio Lara

Leigh Wood is again the WBA Featherweight Champion, clearly and quite easily defeating the ragged Mauricio Lara today in Manchester.

Wood reclaimed the belt with scores of 116-111, 118-109 and 118-109, the latter two being more common than the 116-111 card.

Lara (26-3-1, 19 KOs) lost weight this week and the British Boxing Commission wouldn’t even let him go down to 126 on Friday after he blew the checkweight earlier in the week.

This meant that Lara was stripped of the WBA title on Friday, and only Wood (27-3, 16 KOs) could come out with the belt, and he did.

Wood dropped Lara in the second round and otherwise just dominated the fight with Lara looking like she had nothing in her tank the whole time. But that shouldn’t take away from Wood either, who just wrapped up his game plan and did it successfully, same as he did for six rounds last time, but this time without Lara, who had a lot of fire in response.

“I didn’t lose no matter what. 10 pounds, whatever, I wasn’t losing tonight. Mauricio Lara is a great player but I have a great team and I knew what I had to do. “That is why i am here. I’m here for the hard fights. I may be defeated, but guess what? I will come back and defeat them.”

“Hiting the body was the key to success, not just keeping distance but also building it. A big thank you to my team who also won.”

Wood’s Nottingham fans were loud and proud to be in Manchester and now Wood is hoping to see his next fight at the City Ground, home of Nottingham Forest FC

“I think Josh Warrington makes sense, but the union of (Luis Alberto) Lopez is even bigger. I only have two fights left. I want my happy ending.”