Robert Easter Jr. (born January 26, 1991) is an American professional boxer who held the IBF lightweight title from 2016 to 2018.
[3] As an amateur, Easter Jr. compiled a record of 213 wins and 17 losses, and was an alternate on the United States boxing team for the 2012 Olympics.
Having not won any national amateur titles, his decision to turn professional later that year came at the recommendation of fellow Ohio native and former world champion Adrien Broner, with whom he currently shares a trainer in Mike Stafford.
[6] In his next fight, on September 9, 2016, Easter faced undefeated top contender Richard Commey of Ghana for the IBF lightweight title.
[8] On June 30, Easter had a much tougher outing against mandatory challenger Denis Shafikov, whom he defeated via unanimous decision after a competitive and hard-hitting slugfest.
[9] Easter was scheduled to make his third defense of his IBF lightweight title against contender Javier Fortuna on January 20, 2018, in the Barclays Center on the undercard of the Errol Spence Jr. and Lamont Peterson fight.
Even though Easter's performance was underwhelming he was able to earn a very controversial split decision from the judges (114-113, 115–112, and 113–114) which resulted in an on pour of boos from the crowd.
[11][12] On April 24, WBC president Sulaiman stated Garcia would participate in a lightweight unification with Easter Jr in the summer.
[15] Before a crowd of 12,560, Garcia dropped Easter in round 3 on his way to a unanimous decision win with scores of 116–111, 117-110 and 118–109, to become the unified WBC and IBF lightweight champion.
[18] On April 27, 2019, Easter Jr fought Rances Barthelemy for the vacant WBA regular lightweight title.