Early reports on 30 November 2016, stated that there were talks of Lara to defend his WBA and IBO titles against former WBA super welterweight champion Yuri Foreman (34-2, 10 KOs). Lara's team was also in talks with Luis Collazo. It was confirmed that the fight against Foreman would headline the Premier Boxing Champions on 13 January 2017. The fight was held at the Hialeah Park Racing and Casino in Miami, Florida, in front of a largely Cuban crowd. Foreman was knocked down in round three. Upon closer inspection, the fall could easily have been ruled a slip. Lara won the fight after delivering a knockout in the fourth round via left uppercut. Although Foreman beat the count, he was on unsteady legs after multiple attempts to get back up. The referee promptly waved off the bout. In the post-fight interview, Lara expressed his desire to finally face off with unified middleweight titlist Gennady Golovkin and rematch lineal middleweight titlist Canelo Álvarez. The fight averaged 547,000 viewers on Spike TV and peaked at 707,000.