Lerena beats Merhy to earn right to challenge champion Luasz Rozanski for WBC bridgerweight world title

Kevin Lerena did just enough to shade a cagey, cautious and calculated clash against Ryad Merhy on Saturday night to earn the right to challenge Polish champion Luasz Rozanski for the WBC bridgerweight world title. 

The popular South African southpaw earned a unanimous points victory over the Ivory Coast–born Belgian to take home the famous green belt — the WBC bridgerweight silver title.  

The judges scored the fight 11-8-110; 115-113; 116-112 as Lerena returned to winning ways after his defeat in the heavyweights by Daniel Dubois in December. 

It was not a classic fight that had been expected given the two boxers’ punching power and impressive knockout pedigree, the two pugilists clearly respectful of each other. 

Expectedly though, Lerena started on the offensive and fought on the front foot throughout, even though he took time to warm up and even then he did not let his punches loose enough. 

The fight came alive a little in the fourth round as Merhy threw some good punches to which Lerena responded with his own.  

The South African was ahead on one judge’s scorecard (37-39) after four rounds while the other two had it even at 38-38. 

The bout continued in a similar fashion for the second third, with Lerena doing the chasing without really threatening Merhy who seemed content to wait to catch his adversary with counter punches. 

Lerena was ahead on two judges’ score cards after eight rounds, 79-73 and 78-74 with one judge seeing the fight even at 76 all. 

But then in the ninth, the man they call “Two Guns” went on a serious offensive and had Merhy in trouble with the referee even slipping while the two trainers rushed towards each other and had a verbal exchange at the end of the round. 

Now somewhat assured of victory, Lerena cruised in the final three rounds and when Merhy tried to make a fight of it late in the final round the former IBO cruiserweight champion gave as good as he got to the delight of his crowd. 

And the announcement of the result was met with loud cheers in the packed arena, the outcome satisfying though the discerning Lerena fans knew their star was nowhere near his best on the night.  

But he did enough and now is in line to become world champion of a highly respected sanctioning body.   

In the main supporting bout, Keaton Gomes made a successful first defence of his national heavyweight title by knocking out Josh Pretorious early in the fourth round.  

It was the first time in a while that a local boxer managed to hold on to the title and Gomes was understandably over the moon. 

“Peter (Smith, his trainer) pushed me hard in this camp and under his watchful eye we can never go wrong. I was a bit slow but I finally landed the combo that he wanted me to,” a delighted Gomes said, promising to deliver a more explosive performance in his next fight. 

The earlier undercard produced some interesting bouts, ranging from one-sided affairs that delivered quick knockouts to evenly-matched encounters decided via split decisions. 

Zimbabwe’s Beaven Sibanda made quick work of Sandile Wessels in their junior-flyweight clash, the South African fighter failing to come out for the third round after a thorough beating in the initial rounds.  

Sibanda twice sent Wessels to the canvas in the opening round and then pummelled him in the second to take his record to five wins in as many fights. 

Another Zimbabwean Ndabazakhile Phiri gave Miranda Malajika a baptism of fire into the professional ranks via a split decision victory of 39-37; 40-36 and 33-39 in their junior bantamweight scrap. 

Ntethelelo Nkosi outpointed Gift Bholo 58-56; 59-55 and 59-55 to win their junior welterweight six-rounder. 

Welterweight Kaanu Koopman was his usual impressive best as he knocked out Pieter de Klerk in the second round for a fourth successive win of his career within the distance.