Berman eyes big money Lerena fight for Mchunu

● Thabiso Mchunu, who takes on Tommy Oosthuizen in the main event at Emperors Palace on Saturday night, could end up fighting his chief sparring partner Kevin Lerena in the near future — if promoter Rodney Berman gets his way.

Buoyed by the massive public interest in the fight — the box-and-dine event has been sold out — Berman is keen to dish up more cruiserweight action for fans.

“The public knows when it’s a real fight,” said Berman, adding it had been a long time since a non-title bout he’d staged had drawn such interest.

If the Mchunu versus Oosthuizen bout lives up to expectations — there is a risk it might not because both southpaws are counter-punchers — then Berman wants to do another Super Four series with the two boxers plus International Boxing Organisation (IBO) champion Lerena and one other.

One major obstacle could be that Mchunu is trained by Sean Smith and Lerena by his brother, Peter Smith. The ringsmiths might be brothers working closely together, but they work out of different gyms and effectively run separate stables.

“I would offer them good money,” said Berman, explaining the two winning semifinalists would fight for R2m, with 60% going to the winner.

“Even the losing finalist, if you factor in his purse for the first fight, would earn well in excess of R1m.”

Should the fight be one-way traffic in Mchunu’s favour, Berman will try for a oneoff bout against Lerena. The promoter says part of his motivation is the worsening randdollar exchange rate which makes it expensive to bring out fighters with reputations big enough to impress local fans.

Berman staged the world heavyweight title contest between Lennox Lewis and Hasim Rahman in Johannesburg in 2001, but the boxers’ purses were paid by US-based pay-per-view broadcaster HBO.

Comparisons now between SA boxing and the fight game abroad are laughable. Premium tickets for the Gennady Golovkin-Canelo Alvarez rematch in Las Vegas next month are selling for $5,000.

“They just sell five of those tickets and they’ve made more than the entire gate takings at my tournament,” said Berman.

Fans are split over who will win the Mchunu-Oosthuizen showdown, but it is clear that Mchunu is the favourite on paper.

The only real doubt over Mchunu is whether he will pitch up for the fight, or be a shell of himself in the ring.

Oosthuizen, on the other hand, has more questions he needs to answer.

Will his wild years of substance abuse catch up with him? Will the small tyre of flab around his middle betray him if Mchunu works the body?

Can Oosthuizen’s skills, speed and power survive the move up to cruiserweight, and can he handle the power there?

Mchunu tends to perform well in local showdowns, and he was unstoppable in Berman’s last cruiserweight super series back in 2012. He was even impressive against Ilunga Makabu in 2015 before running out of steam.

Oosthuizen has it all to do.