By Rick Reeno

Home Depot Center, Carson, California - Erislandy Lara (18-1-2, 12KOs) got off the deck, twice, and stopped Alfredo Angulo (22-3, 18KOs) in the tenth round to win the vacant interim-WBA junior middleweight title.

Angulo came charging forward in the first round, and Lara was douing well with hard counters right on the button. Lara was doing well with picking Angulo off - until the fourth round, when Angulo caugh the Cuban boxer with a monster shot that sent him crashing. Lara was hurt and using every bit of his defensive talents to make it out of the round.

Angulo started to take over the fight in the fifth, with his come-forward style and constant punching to the body of Lara. The Cuban counter-piunhcer was still doing good work with his defense and counters, but none of them were able to push Angulo back or stop his incoming charge.

During the ninth, Lara was clipped hard and dropped for the second time. Once again he used every bit of his defense to make it out of the round.

During the tenth round, Lara landed a hard combination of punches that caught Angulo right on his eye, breaking his orbital bone - and then the Mexican slugger was in a lot of pain and started walking back to his corner in the middle of the action - and at that point the referee quickly waved off the fight and the doctors rushed the ring.

At the time of the stoppage, Lara was ahead 85-84 on two cards and Angulo up 86-83 on the third.