South Africa’s Kevin Lerena will make the next defense of his IBO junior-heavyweight belt against Sefer Seferi of Macedonia on Saturday September 21 at the Emperors Palace Casino near Kempton Park.

The southpaw Lerena (23-1, 10 KOs), who has been fighting as a pro since November 2011, has won the WBF Africa junior-heavyweight, WBC Youth junior heavyweight, South African junior- heavyweight, WBA Pan African cruiserweight and IBO junior-heavyweight titles.

He captured the vacant IBO belt with a split decision win over Youri Kayembre Kalenga in September 2017 and has made successful defences of the belt against Dmytro Kucher (ud 12), Roman Golovashchenko (ud 12), Artur Mann (tko 4) and Vasil Ducar (ud 12).

The 40-year-old Seferi (23-2-1, 10 KOs) was born in Gostivar, SFR Yugoslavia (now Macedonia), but fights out of Burgdorf, Switzerland, and made his pro debut on May 26, 2007.

He won 19 of his first 21 fights inside the distance mainly against poor opponents, a number of whom had negative records.

On September 17, 2016 he moved up to the heavyweight division to face Manuel Charr (29-4) in a bout for the vacant WBA International heavyweight title and lost on points over ten rounds with scores 98-91; 97-92 and 96-93.

He then won his next two fights against Marcelo Ferreira do Santos (ko 5) and Lazlo Hubert (ko 2) before meeting former WBA/IBF/WBO and IBO heavyweight champion Tyson Fury who was returning to the ring after being out for 31 months.

In a complete mismatch Seferi who was 30 kilograms lighter than Fury was stopped in the fourth round.

On November 2017 last year he dropped down to cruiserweight again and fought to a 12 round majority draw against the experienced Firat Arslan (44-8-2) in a clash for the WBO Intercontinental and Global Union world titles.

Even though Seferi is 40-years-old he is superbly conditioned and with a knockout ratio of 81% he could extend the champion over 12 close rounds.