By Keith Idec

NEW YORK – By the ninth round of the Erislandy Lara-Terrell Gausha fight Saturday night, what was left of the Barclays Center crowd broke into a chant no fighter ever wants to hear.

“This is boring! This is boring! This is boxing!,” was what rang through the arena in a fight Lara was winning comfortably. The Cuban southpaw knocked down Gausha in the fourth round, but seemed content thereafter to box his way to an easy points win against an overmatched opponent that didn’t take many risks.

Houston’s Lara (25-2-2, 14 KOs) won their 12-round fight by large margins on all three scorecards. Judge Julie Lederman scored it 116-111 for Lara, who won by the same score, 117-110, on the scorecards of Don Trella and Steve Weisfeld.

The 34-year-old Lara retained his WBA and IBO super welterweight championships in the main event of a nine-bout card at Barclays Center in Brooklyn. Cleveland’s Gausha (20-1, 9 KOs) entered their fight undefeated, but the 2012 Olympian was a huge underdog because he took a steep step up in competition against one of the most skillful fighters in boxing.

While Lara made his victory look relatively easy, his fight wasn’t as exciting as either of the first two 154-pound title fights on the card.

Just before Lara and Gausha got in the ring, WBC super welterweight champion Jermell Charlo (30-0, 15 KOs) scored a stunning one-punch, first-round knockout of mandatory challenger Erickson Lubin (18-1, 13 KOs).

In the opener of Showtime’s tripleheader, IBF junior middleweight champion Jarrett Hurd (21-0, 15 KOs) became the first fighter to stop former champion Austin Trout (30-4, 17 KOs). A ringside physician instructed referee Eddie Claudio to stop their fight following the 10th round after examining a battered, beaten Trout in his corner.

Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for krikya360.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.