Budler takes on Canoy at Emperors Palace
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Three international fights and two quality preliminary fights will be held at Emperors Palace near Kempton Park on Saturday night.
The tournament will be shown live on SS7 from 7:30pm to 11:30pm.
Heading the bill is a clash between Hekkie Budler and Joey Canoy, from the Philippines, for the vacant IBO junior flyweight belt, and Kevin Lerena, who goes in against Namibian Vikapita Merora in a ten-round cruiserweight bout.
Budler (30-2; 9) will be hoping to win his fourth world title after having already held the IBO junior flyweight and strawweight titles and the WBA strawweight belt.
He was also elevated to the WBA “super” strawweight champion in January
last year before losing the WBA belt to Byron Rojas in a low-key performance in March 2016.
However, after moving up to junior-flyweight in October 2016 he was back on track when he outscored Siyabongo Siyo to claim the vacant WBA Pan African junior flyweight title.
The 23-year-old Canoy, who has a record of 12-2-1; 6, fights from the southpaw stance and the only losses in his career were against Jerry Tomogdan, who beat him on points, and Jesse Espinos, who stopped in the fifth round in his first fight in 2016.
However, he came back later in 2016 to score two inside the distance victories over Fabio Marfa (tko 4) and Toto Landero (tko 6).
Budler is listed at No 6 in the junior flyweights and Canoy as the number ten strawweight in the January 2017 IBO ratings.
LERENA VS MERORO
Kevin Lerena (16-1; 8), the South African and WBA Pan African cruiserweight champion goes in against the rugged Vikapita Merora (28-5; 14), who has been in with good fighters like Stanislav Kashtanov, Isaac Chilemba, Juergen Braehmer and Dmitry Kudryasho, who have all scored victories over him.
However, only Kudryasho stopped him inside the distance in his last fight in May 2015 in Russia, when he was knocked out at 52 seconds of the sixth round after holding his own through the first five rounds.
Kudryasho has a record of 20-1 with all his wins coming inside the distance.
The taller Meroro could extend Lerena over the ten-round distance.
LIEBENBERG VS KOELLING
South African light-heavyweight champion Ryno Liebenberg (17-4; 12) hopes to gain revenge over Germany’s Enrico Koeling (22-1; 6) in a rematch after losing on a disputed split decision against Koeling in Germany in October 2016. The scores were 117-111 and 116-112 for Koeling and 117-111 for Liebenberg.
MBENGE VS MEMELA
Thulani Mbenge (8-0; 8), who won a bronze medal at the 2012 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, hopes to continue with his knockout streak when he faces the southpaw Ntuthuko Memela (12-3-2; 8) from KwaZulu/Natal in an eight-round welterweight contest.
Mbenge, from the Eastern Cape but now fighting out of the Smith gym in Cedar Square, Sandton, could be extended by Memela, who lost on points in a challenge for the South African welterweight title against Tsiko Mulovhedzi in September 2013.
He has also fought to a draw with the current South African welterweight champion Shaun Ness.
In the opening bout of the evening, Rowan Campbell of Gauteng meets Fhulufhelo Ramaliba from Limpopo in a scheduled four-round light-heavyweight contest.
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