By Ron Jackson
South Africa’s Hector “Hekkie” Budler, a former two-weight world champion, faces a tough task when he meets former WBO light flyweight champion Elwin Soto of Mexico at the Palenque Fex in Mexicali, Mexico over 12 rounds on Saturday.
The 34-year-old Budler (33-4, 10 KOs) has had an outstanding record having held the WBA and IBF light-flyweight belts in 2018, and the IBO and WBA minimumweight belts between 2011 and 2016. There is no doubt Budler will fighting in front of a hostile crowd with the 25-year-old Soto (19-2, 13 KOs) in a fight that has been reported as a WBC title eliminator. The WBC champion is Kenshiro Teraji.
Soto made his pro debut in October 2016 and lost his third fight.
He won the WBO light flyweight belt when he stopped Angel Acosta in the twelfth round and made successful defenses against Edward Heno (ud 12), Carlos Buitrago (ud 12) and then stopped former strawweight champion Katsunari Takayama (tko 9).
Soto, 25, lost his belt on points over 12 rounds against Jonathan Gonzalez on a split decision in his most recent fight.
Some scribes are predicting that Soto will win inside the distance and most of the oddsmakers favor the Mexican.
The main organization champions are WBA “super” Hiroto Kyoguchi. WBA secondary Esteban Bermudez, WBC Kenshiro Teraji, and IBF vacant.
Task should be don’t drink the water. Lol
Hekkie has had so many fights that were wars. Not sure how much he has left in him at 34 y old now. If he boxes he can do it, if he makes a fight of it, not so sure.
One fight in the last 3 and a half years, fighting a 25 year old former world champion in his hometown, not looking too good for Budler. Will be one of his best wins if he can pull it off.
Hekkie Budler won’t last 5 rounds, fun to watch but at 34 he is way past gis primes, I guess this could be his last fight
I lost all respect for Hekkie Budler when he ducked Ali Raymi for years.
Well that’s an excellent point but in his defense, pretty much everyone outside of the oddly high number of extremely brave Yemeni undefeated strawweight and lightflyweight fighters ducked Raymi.
No one wanted those type of problems.
Roman Gonzalez was a lightflyweight by 2013, and after watching some highlights of Ali, I am very sure Roman could have decimated him in less than 2 rounds.
No need to inject realism in this discussion! How dare you Burucho!