Golden Gloves’ second tournament of the year, this time dubbed December Detonation, looks set to go ahead with a star-studded fight card.
This will see the return of South African boxing golden boy Kevin ‘Two Guns’ Lerena to feature at the home of SA boxing, Emperors Palace on December 19.
IBO world cruiserweight champion, Lerena, will headline the event in a non-title, 10-round catchweight fight. He will take on Patrick Ferguson from Spokane, USA.
Ferguson has a 17-2-1 record with 13 knockouts, both those losses coming on the road in Australia and Ghana.
The champion will be using this fight to keep active ahead of his all-important unification match early next year – with February/March the likely dates.
Elsewhere in the semi-final of the ‘Who will Prevail?’ cruiserweight tournament, undefeated Akani ‘Prime’ Phuzi will defend his WBA Pan African title over 10 rounds against Boksburg’s Hammer Gym’s Johnny ‘Hurricane’ Muller.
Phuzi, boasting a record of 11-0 with five knockouts, was originally slated to meet Chris Thompson but the latter pulled out with an injury, opening the way for Muller to step in.
Muller, a former South African and WBC international silver champion at light heavyweight, is perhaps best known as the man who gave Lerena his only defeat. A 32-fight veteran, he is by far the more experienced man, having shared the ring with the likes of Aleksandr Usyk and Thabiso Mchunu.
Win or lose, he always brings the action, and it would be interesting to see whether he can give Phuzi something to think about.
In the main supporting bout, Roarke ‘Razor’ Knapp takes on undefeated South African junior middleweight champion, Simon Dladla, for the vacant IBO world youth junior middleweight title.
Dladla won the national title by stopping Junior Makondo in two rounds in December last year and has won all but one of his six bouts by knockout.
Commenting on the bout, Golden Gloves events coordinator Jeff Ellis said: “The youth world title between Knapp and Dladla is a special fight. Youth titles don’t come often.”
Knapp is coming off a very impressive second round stoppage of Tristan Truter in October to bring his record to 10-1-1 with eight knockouts. That fight was the third-place bout of the 4@War junior middleweight tournament.
Also Read: Truter talks 4@War loss
