{"id":699423,"date":"2026-05-28T06:01:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-28T06:01:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/699423\/"},"modified":"2026-05-28T06:01:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-28T06:01:08","slug":"may-brings-fresh-challenge-for-champ-lerena","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/699423\/","title":{"rendered":"May brings fresh challenge for champ Lerena"},"content":{"rendered":"

Will the grace of the month of May smile on Kevin Lerena<\/a>?<\/p>\n

In Christianity, May is historically celebrated as the \u201cMonth of Mary\u201d, emphasising virtues like humility and grace.<\/p>\n

In numerology and various esoteric traditions, the number five represents grace, balance, and human ascension.<\/p>\n

The significance in the life of Lerena is that the left-handed, two-weight world boxing champion was born on May 5 1992. This former IBO cruiserweight world champ won the vacant WBC Silver<\/a> bridgerweight<\/a> title on May 13 2023.<\/p>\n

Lerena \u2212 who goes by the ring name \u201cTwo Guns\u201d \u2212 was crowned WBC bridgerweight world champion on October 8 2024. He became the first African to win that belt in a weight division created in 2020 by WBC president Mauricio Sulaiman<\/a> to cater for small heavyweights.<\/p>\n

It is a weight division between the cruiserweight and heavyweight. <\/p>\n

Lerena successfully defended it on May 1 last year via a third-round stoppage of Ukrainian Serhiy Radchenko at SunBet Arena<\/a> in Pretoria. He will put his belt on the line on May 30 at the Hall des Expositions in Charleroi, Belgium.<\/p>\n

His dance partner on Saturday is Ryad Merhy, in what will be their second meeting inside the roped square. Lerena defeated the Ivorian-born Belgian-French and former WBA regular cruiserweight world champ at Emperors Palace.<\/p>\n

With former heavyweight top contender Peter Smith honing his skills, Lerena is looking for a definitive stoppage in enemy territory.<\/p>\n

He has made an impression in the heavyweight division, where he won the WBA and IBO Inter-Continental titles. He lost to Daniel Dubois for the WBA regular heavyweight belt in 2022 despite dropping the Englishman three times in the first round. <\/p>\n

Two years later, Lerena lost to Australian Justis Huni for the WBO Global heavyweight title at Kingdom Arena<\/a> in Riyadh<\/a>, Saudi Arabia, on March 8.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, Merhy, who fights out of Brussels, became the first male Belgian professional boxer to capture a major world title \u2212 the WBA cruiserweight belt \u2212 in 2021.<\/p>\n

Seven months after losing to Lerena, Merhy chalked up a points win over 10 rounds against Tony Yoka \u2212 a former European Union<\/a> heavyweight<\/a> champion from France.<\/p>\n

On April 13 last year, Merhy lost to Jared \u201cThe Real Big Bay\u201d Anderson, a former North American Boxing Federation heavyweight champion from Toledo, Ohio, in the US.<\/p>\n

That defeat was Merhy\u2019s third against 32 wins, with 26 knockouts.<\/p>\n

The fight between Lerena and 33 year-old Merhy will be broadcast live by SuperSport on DStv channel 209.<\/p>\n

Sowetan<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Will the grace of the month of May smile on Kevin Lerena? In Christianity, May is historically celebrated…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":699424,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[571],"tags":[64,63,802,314898,31829,340732,340733,85],"class_list":["post-699423","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-boxing","tag-lerena","tag-mauricio","tag-radchenko","tag-ryad","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/699423","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=699423"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/699423\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/699424"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=699423"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=699423"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=699423"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}