Lerena impresses to capture vacant heavyweight title

Kevin Lerena impressed in his newly found heavyweight division capturing the vacant World Boxing Association (WBA) Intercontinental title on March 26.

It took him only four rounds to overpower Bogdan Dinu of Romania during the scheduled 12-round bout.

In the third round, Dinu claimed a low blow but continued soon afterwards. In the fourth round, Lerena delivered a right-hand blow to the head of his opponent, but Dinu beat the count. Only seconds later the final punch was delivered by Lerena and Dinu had to face to the full count.

Lerena (30) improved on his record to 27/1/13, while Dinu (35) saw his record drop to 20/4/16.

In the main supporting heavyweight bout, Joshua Pretorius won the South African heavyweight title and the vacant African Boxing Union (ABU) heavyweight titles with a unanimous points decision over defending South African heavyweight champion Juan Roux.

The scores were 118-100, 118-112 and 116-112.

South African and International Boxing Federation (IBF) Africa junior middleweight champion Shervantaigh Koopman won by a fifth-round TKO over Jamie Webb to retain the title.

The two other bouts saw heavyweight Keaton Gomes win on a first-round stoppage over Shaun Potgieter.
In a middleweight encounter, Mbiya Kanku (DRC) won by TKO against Phikelani Khumalo.