No Terror can scare The Lion
Tissen shows guts signing up
Not even the moniker “Terror” is frightful enough to scare off Ryno “The Lion” Liebenberg going into a 12-rounder for the vacant ABU super middleweight title at Emperors Palace on Saturday night.
Alfonso “Terror” Tissen, 26, has shown great guts and determination by signing up to face war-horse Liebenberg, 34, who has been in the ring with some of the top names such as Eleider “The Storm” Alvarez.
The hard-hitting Colombian had to dig deeper to eventually stop Liebenberg in the seventh round in Monaco. Alvarez confirmed his greatness on August 4 by knocking out feared Sergey Kovalev to capture the IBA and WBO light heavyweight belts and remains undefeated after 24 fights.
But when Golden Gloves promoter Rodney Berman approached Tissen to face Liebenberg, the relatively inexperienced fighter with only 11 wins, two losses and two draws, signed on the dotted line. Tissen is a former ABU middleweight holder who is trained by Gert Strydom.
Liebenberg has 18 wins against six losses.
“There are no short cuts in boxing and Alfonso still has a lot of walking to do. I am going to knock him out to prove to him that he is not there yet.
“I am not some boy; I am a man and I’m going to show him that I still have firepower and also still aspire to fight for a world title,” Liebenberg said.
“This is one of my easiest fights. I fought some of the big guys in the world. Maybe Alfonso will beat one of them in future but certainly not now. I am going to show him that he is far from fighting big boys.”
Boxing SA 2017 trainer of the year Colin “Nomakanjani” Nathan described Tissen as a capable fighter with good technique, but warned: “I expect Ryno to wear him down and probably stop him in the later round. But, the fact is that we will win the fight.”