By Keith Idec

There was no question about the knockdown Erislandy Lara produced in the fourth round Friday night.

A round after Lara was credited with a knockdown that shouldn’t have counted, the Cuban southpaw blasted Yuri Foreman with a left uppercut that floored Foreman. The former 154-pound champion was hurt badly by Lara’s well-placed punch. He eventually reached his feet, but was disoriented and their scheduled 12-round title fight was stopped at 1:47 of the fourth round in Hialeah, Florida.

The 33-year-old Lara (24-2-2, 14 KOs) made a sixth successful defense of the WBA, IBO world super welterweight titles he won on an interim basis when he stopped Alfredo Angulo in the 10th round of a June 2013 bout in Carson, California. Brooklyn’s Foreman fell to 34-3.

Spike televised the Lara-Foreman fight from Hialeah Park Racing & Casino, just outside of Miami.

Lara, listed as an eyebrow-raising 100-1 favorite by several Internet sports books before Friday’s fight, delivered on his promise to win by knockout inside of six rounds.

“I promised I would do it,” Lara said, “and I did it.”

Lara scored a knockdown during the third round, though a replay clearly showed Lara’s leg got tangled with Foreman’s leg and sent him to the canvas briefly. The first two rounds mostly were uneventful, other than Lara landing several left hands.

The 36-year-old Foreman had won his six previous bouts, but all against a much lower level of opposition. Facing Lara marked Foreman’s first significant fight since New Jersey’s Pawel Wolak stopped him in a March 2011 bout in Las Vegas.

Foreman won the WBA world super welterweight for which he fought Friday night in November 2009, when he out-pointed Puerto Rico’s Daniel Santos in Las Vegas. Miguel Cotto ruined Foreman’s first title defense by stopping him in the ninth round of their June 2010 bout at Yankee Stadium.

The Belarus-born Foreman later became an ordained Orthodox rabbi. He told BoxingScene.com on Thursday that it was a difficult decision to agree to fight Friday night because it occurred during Sabbath, Judaism’s period reserved for rest and worship.

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