By Ron Jackson
It has been reported that South Africa’s number one fighter Kevin Lerena (30-2, 14 KOs), the WBC interim bridgerweight champion, will be fighting at the Kingdom Arena in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia on March 8, when he meets the unbeaten Australian heavyweight Justus Huni (8-0, 4 KOs) on the undercard of the Anthony Joshua vs Francis Nganou heavyweight fight.
The current WBC Bridgerweight champion is Lukasz Rozanski (15-0, 14 KOs) from Poland who is reportedly scheduled to face Oscar Rivas in Columbia on August 13.
Despite being one of the top two fighters in the bridgerweight division, Lerena, 31, will moving into the heavyweight class to keep busy and earn a good purse on the international stage.
The southpaw Lerena, 31, made his pro debut in November 2011 and has won the WBF African, WBC Youth Silver, South African, IBO, Super Four cruiserweight titles and the WBA Inter Continental heavyweight title.
The 24-year-old Huni is a Tongan-Australian from Meadowbrook, Queensland and won a bronze medal at the 2019 World Amateur championships. He was scheduled to represent Australia at the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo but was ruled out due to an injury.
Huni made his pro debut on October 22, 2020, and his most notable fight was against former rugby league player Paul Gallen whom he stopped in the tenth round in a bruising encounter.
This could be a tough one for Lerena, but being the more experienced fighter he should win on points over ten rounds.
Maybe moving to heavyweight because nobody cares about bridgerweight?
Could be a very interesting fight.
I respect your reports Ron Jackson but this is a big statement on Lerena:
“but being the more experienced fighter he should win on points over ten rounds”.
Huni is going to make him look silly. Huni’s boxing skills are excellent. A couple of levels above Lerena.
A series of injuries have curtailed Huni’s career. Hopefully he is over these. he has the ability to go a long way in the heavyweight division.
Don’t underestimate Huni he has fast hands give Lerena a hard fight
Lerena is a natural cruiser, not even a proper bridger, definitely not a heavy. They are using Lerena as a stepping stone for Huni. To make Huni look good in beating Lerena like Dubois did, but not getting knocked down like Dubois was against Lerena and then shouting out Huni is definitely at Dubois’ level, world class level. Being a Lerena fan, I hope somehow he upsets all these plans.