By Rick Reeno

Junior middleweight contender Erislandy Lara (18-1-2, 12KOs) was not concerned with the possibility of losing after getting dropped twice in Saturday's fight against Alfredo Angulo (22-3, 18 KOs) at the Home Depot Center in Carson, California. Lara, who went down in the fourth and the ninth, came back to stop Angulo in the tenth round - after the Mexican slugger indicated that he suffered an injury to his left eye. Angulo is going to specialist later today in order to determine the extent of the damage. It was initially believed that his orbital bone was broken.

At the time of the stoppage, Angulo was ahead 86-83 on one scorecard, and Lara was up 85-84 with the other two judges.

"Angulo started strong in the early rounds, but then I felt him lose power. I was still winning the fight, even with the knockdowns. I knew I was going to stop him in the later rounds. He caught me with a good shot, but I worked too hard to get here from the shark infested waters of Cuba to let a few knockdowns get in my way. Angulo had good power, but I used my movement to step and slide around him and land my big left hands. I wanted to stand in front of him and give the fans a good fight and that's when I got caught," Lara said.