Kevin Lerena beats Ryad Merhy to jump world championship queue

Kevin “Two Guns” Lerena has rebounded from his December defeat to Daniel Dubois and elevated himself back to the front of the world championship queue. 

The flamboyant South African southpaw (now 29-2-14 knockouts) earned a shot at the World Boxing Council (WBC) bridgerweight world title held by Poland’s Lukasz Rozanski (15-0) by out-pointing the Belgian Ryad Merhy (31-2) in a 12-round eliminator on Saturday night.

The clash for the reputable Mexico-based organisation’s ‘silver’ title, headlined Golden Gloves’ appropriately named six-fight “Eliminator’ Box and Dine card at Emperors Palace.

No 1 contender

With Lerena now installed as the No 1 contender for Rozanski’s title, promoter Rodney Berman has revealed he will “try move heaven and earth” to bring the world title decider to South Africa.

“Kevin is now officially a mandatory challenger for the title, which gives us the same negotiating power as the champion’s camp,” explained Berman. “We would have to consider a pretty big offer to agree to take the fight in Poland and it has to be understood that the Rand-Dollar exchange rate also levels the playing field with regards to bringing it here.

“Cruiserweight was once a Cinderella division and often frowned upon until Evander Holyfield came along. There are still some ‘smaller’ heavyweights lurking in that division and Kevin can make this new division his own,” Berman pointed out.

Based on the response of the sell-out crowd on Saturday, Lerena is a massive drawcard at home. With the calibre of opponents the 37-year-old Rozanski has faced in an unbeaten 15-fight career, everything would appear to point towards Lerena and the Pole has only been full distance once (14 kos).

Back to Saturday’s clash, both fighters were well-matched in terms of height, weight and ring records and showed one another a high degree of respect in a contest that ebbed and flowed over 12 rounds.

Aggressive Lerena

Lerena’s aggression and pesky come-forward style probably went a long way to earning him the judges’ verdict by unanimous decision 118-110, 115-113, 116-112.

The Ivorian-born Belgian spent the bulk of the fight on the back foot as Lerena found himself having to chase him to create openings, but his sound defensive and slick counter-punching skills more often than not limited Lerena’s ability to string together effective combinations.

In line with the WBC’s public scoring rules, after the first four rounds, two of the ringside judges had the fight even and another had Lerena two points clear.

By then it had already become pretty clear that the patrons and fans were in for a tactical battle between two well-matched fighters.

By the eighth round, one judge still had the contest level-pegging 76-76, with the other two scoring it at 79-73 and 78-74 but the fight did catch fire in the final quarter as both fighters were wobbled by some heavy punches.

In the main supporting bout, another fighter drifting in bridgerweight territory, Keaton Gomes (now 10-2-8 kos) became the first fighter in a number of years to retain the “slippery” SA heavyweight title with a fourth round knockout victory over former champion Joshua Pretorius, who slipped to (9-7).