Fighting back: Kevin Lerena still climbing global boxing ladder

In golf it is not uncommon for a player to have a nightmare hole by carding a bogey – or worse – but forging ahead with a birdie run – or better – on subsequent holes.

A small minority of golfers today have an uncanny ability not to fall apart after a disastrous hole and proceed to re-gather themselves and summon the mental strength to burn up the course and win big tournaments, not to mention the hefty paydays that go with it too.

Under pressure

In discussion with a golf-mad colleague of mine on one of my frequent visits to the water cooler, we marvelled at how the top golfers today must not only have the ‘almost perfect’ game or peak at the right time – world No 1 Jon Rahm a case in point – but also have the capacity to remain focused strictly on their own game, even with the likes of Brooks Koepke, Scottie Schefler, Rory McIlroy or any top-tenner for that matter, breathing down their collars.

And so to my point – boxing is also like a retractable ladder, another of the numerous ‘Back to the Future’ kind of sports.

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It had seemed just five months ago that Kevin Lerena’s ‘ladder’ had broken and collapsed when he succumbed to a third-round knockout by Englishman Daniel Dubois in London for the WBA ‘regular’ heavyweight title.

But there was no looking back for the popular South African southpaw.

Hitting back

Yes, “losing sucks” as he put it at last week’s pre-fight weigh-in, but Lerena and his handlers knew that the bottom half of the retractable ladder had slid straight back down and anchored itself on the ground.

Despite a debilitating loss to Dubois, Lerena (29-2-14 knockouts), with the incredible mental strength he’s renowned for, moved on swiftly, re-discovered his hunger and out-pointed the Belgian Ryad Merhy (31-2) in a 12-round WBC bridgerweight world title eliminator at Emperors Palace on Saturday night.

READ MORE: Lerena beats Merhy to jump world championship queue

He’s now earned a shot at the WBC bridgerweight world title held by Poland’s Lukasz Rozanski (15-0) and is already halfway up the ladder again with no intention of looking down.

Kudos to Lerena and his management for re-grouping and putting the Dubois fight on the back burner.

Now for that one step beyond.