Lerena is ready for the heavies
STEP-UP: ENCOUNTERS THE TOWERING ROMANIAN DINU
Former IBO cruiserweight world champion Kevin “Two Guns” Lerena will step on to the tough heavyweight ladder for the first time at Emperors Palace tonight.
After being out of action for 15 months due to injury and illness, the popular 29-year-old southpaw headlines the Golden Gloves “Heavyweight Mania” card against 35-year-old Romanian Bogdan Dinu for the vacant WBA Inter-continental heavyweight title.
Having last stepped between the ropes in a keep-busy fight against the American Kevin Ferguson in December 2020, Lerena says the prolonged layoff has just made him “even hungrier”.
The South African (26-1-13 knockouts) will answer the opening bell giving away a significant height, weight and reach advantage to the gangly Dinu (20-3-16 ko’s), who stands 1.98 metres tall with a high career knockout ratio.
True to his confident demeanour, it was fighting talk from Lerena: “I’m not fazed having to fight bigger, stronger men. The mountain is high and I’m prepared to climb it,” he proclaimed.
“Heavyweight is very different. The punches come from different angles and one has to learn to neutralise power with speed and ring IQ,” he added.
There are very few reasons to question his solid skillset but the home fighter is more relaxed that his battle wity the scale is over.
“It would be an injustice trying to stay down at cruiserweight. At one stage I was pulling up to 14kg’s just to make the cruiserweight limit,” he said.
The heavyweight division is the pinnacle in terms of monetary offers in the sport and Lerena makes no secret that this is his first “roll of the dice” towards bigger things.
In the main supporting bout, Juan “Rhino” Roux (6-0) puts his SA heavyweight title on the line against Joshua Pretorius (7-4-0) with the vacant ABU title added to the mix.
Dual titles are also on offer when Shervantaigh Koopman (9-0) defends his national and IBF Africa middleweight titles against Jami Webb (6-1-0).