Erislandy Lara and Michael Zerafa have finally found common ground.

BoxingScene.com has confirmed that a deal was struck for their long overdue mandatory WBA middleweight title fight. The two will meet on March 30 as part of the inaugural Premier Boxing Champions (PBC) on Amazon Prime from a Las Vegas venue to be determined.

Lara-Zerafa will land on a show headlined by the Tim Tszyu-Keith Thurman WBO junior middleweight title fight. The main event was first reported by ESPN.com boxing insider Mike Coppinger.  

The development puts to an end a process that has dragged on for nearly a year and has seen the WBA twice order this specific fight along the way.

Zerafa (31-4, 19KOs) signed a strategic deal with PBC last year. The arrangement was meant to allow PBC to move forward with a fight between Lara (29-3-3, 17KOs) and former two-division titlist Danny Garcia (37-3, 21KOs), for which Zerafa was contractually granted a stay-busy fight on the undercard.

TGB Promotions, the primary promoter of record for most PBC events, informed the WBA that the fight would take place last August 5. However, the date came and went without a fight.

So, too, did all of 2023, as neither Lara nor Zerafa made their way to the ring. The frequent delays infuriated Melbourne’s Zerafa, who recently went public with his disdain over how PBC has stalled his career.

The re-ordered title fight came with the anticipation of another offer to step aside and allow Lara-Garcia to appear on the March 30 show, with Zerafa in an undercard versus the opponent of his choosing, within reason. Zerafa was prepared to go the distance to enforce his rights as the mandatory challenger.

Lara claimed the ‘Regular’ version of the title in a May 2021 first-round knockout of Thomas ‘Cornflake’ LaManna. The Cuba-born boxer became a true two-division titlist when Gennadiy Golovkin vacated both the WBA ‘Super’ and IBF belts, which left Lara as the full WBA middleweight title claimant.

Just one defense has come of his stalled reign—a May 2022 eighth-round stoppage of Ireland’s Gary ‘Spike’ O’Sullivan in Brooklyn, New York.

Zerafa has not fought since a November 2022 ten-round decision over unbeaten Danlo Creati in Sydney.

It was his second straight victory over an undefeated middleweight and part of a current four-fight win streak since a heartbreaking ten-round, majority decision defeat to Jeff Horn in their December 2019 rematch. Zerafa scored an upset ninth-round knockout of Horn that previous August, which ruined plans for his countryman to challenge then-WBA ‘Regular’ Middleweight titlist Ryota Murata.

Jake Donovan is a senior writer for BoxingScene.com. X (formerly Twitter): @JakeNDaBox