Kevin Lerena hopes to reignite his career in homecoming bout against Senad Gashi
A year ago, South Africa’s Kevin Lerena nearly struck the boxing powerball when he dropped the heavily favored Daniel Dubois three times in the opening round.
However, the Brit was able to navigate his way through those treacherous waters and rebound to score a pair of knockdowns of his own and get a third round stoppage on the undercard of Tyson Fury-Dereck Chisora 3, at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, London.
Since then, Lerena has returned home and got back in the win column by outpointing Ryad Merhy over 12-rounds in May. And now he’s looking to end the year in impressive fashion when he meets Senad Gashi at Emperors Palace, Johannesburg, on Saturday.
“He’s a good competitor,” Lerena (29-2, 14 knockouts) told The Ring. “I think he’s got skills, he’s got experience, he’s got decent power, he’s got good KO ratio, but there’s more to boxing than experience and power. I believe my boxing IQ is better than his.
“The focus never veers, I am always focused for every one of my fights. I know what I have to do to beat him. I have worked very hard.”
The 31-year-old southpaw feels he has put the Dubois defeat behind him, and knows a win over Gashi will open more doors to potentially bigger and better fights in the new year.
“You’ve got to overcome adversity and that’s what we did,” he said. “The biggest thing is getting the victory and then lets see what doors open up from there. Especially at heavyweight. It’s very open, a fight can go anyway at any given time, that’s the risk that comes with heavyweight boxing.”
While this fight is in the divisive bridgerweight division, where the two will contest the WBC interim title, Lerena isn’t ruling out another run at heavyweight. [Editors Note: The Ring doesn’t recognize the bridgerweight division].
“Whoever (my next opponent) is, or whether we get another fight within the top ten at heavyweight, we’ll have to see. There’s no guarantee’s in boxing,” he said. “You don’t know when your next fight is going to be and you have to see what offers come to the table. I’m very flexible.”
Rodney Berman of Golden Gloves, who is promoting this fight, recognizes the danger the import brings but of course was quick to talk his fighter’s chances up.
“Gashi’s record speaks for itself but quite honestly he’s a bit of an unknown, despite his long knockout record,” said the veteran promoter. “In discussions with him, he’s very, very confident.
“The one thing and that’s my main concern is that the public and television will see a proper fight. It could go either way, obviously I have a great interest in Kevin Lerena. I can’t laud his achievements strongly enough. He never had an amateur fight and his accomplishments are phenomenal but again not taking anything away from Gashi, we’ll just wait and see.”
Lerena is favored and should have too much for Gashi. What will be particularly interesting is how Lerena wins, that will, for the moment anyway, show at what level he is capable of operating at. I think Lerena will score a stoppage in the second half of the fight.
Gashi (27-3, 26 knockouts) turned professional in his adopted homeland of Germany in 2014. After 16 wins he tasted defeat when he was disqualified in six rounds against Tom Schwartz. After getting back in the win column, he lost back-to-back fights in the U.K. against Carlos Takam (TKO 7) and Derek Chisora (UD 10).
The 33-year-old Kosovo-born southpaw has reeled off 11 wins, albeit at a much lower level, including three first round wins this year.
Questions and/or comments can be sent to Anson at [email protected].
