Phumelela Cafu and Kevin Lerena could catapult South African boxing back to global prominence if they triumph on the sport’s biggest stages on Saturday night.
Cafu — holder of the WBO junior-bantamweight title — faces one of the toughest assignments by a South African when he takes on WBC champion Jesse Rodriguez in a unification bout at the Ford Centre, the training ground of the Dallas Cowboys.
No South African has won a unification bout, and only two pugilists from this country have lifted WBC crowns in the ring — Sugar Boy Malinga and Dingaan Thobela; the coveted green belt has offered this nation’s fighters the lowest success rate of the four mainstream belts.
Lerena, who was awarded his WBC bridgerweight title in a boardroom decision last year, ventures back to the heavyweight division to face Briton Lawrence Okolie at the famed Wembley arena, with the winner moving into world title contention.
It’s the continuation of a South African heavyweight tradition that started in the late 1970s when Gerrie Coetzee and Kallie Knoetze were both contenders for the world title. Since then, the country had the likes of Pierre Coetzer, Johnny du Plooy, Frans Botha and Corrie Sanders.
Lerena was supposed to fight Okolie for the bridgerweight belt, and now they get to meet at heavyweight level instead. “Bigger stage, bigger purse. Everything’s bigger now,” said Lerena, who had a similar opportunity when he took on Daniel Dubois in 2022.
Dubois stopped Lerena in the third round after being put down himself three times in the opening round.
“Hopefully this time I can convert and get the victory,” Lerena said this week before flying to London. “I came so close against Dubois and I made the mistake of not finishing him when I had him in trouble.”
Dubois, now the IBF champion, is fighting in the main bout on the card, a world heavyweight unification bout against lineal champion Oleksandr Usyk, holder of the WBC, WBA and WBO heavyweight belts.
Cafu won his world title in his previous fight, beating Kosei Tanaka, a world champion across four divisions, in Tokyo in October.
In the dressing room after that triumph, he turned to his manager Colin Nathan and said he wanted to fight “Bam” Rodriguez next. Nathan told him to hold his horses, thinking a slower road building experience would be more prudent.
That was the plan until they were given the Rodriguez offer, which was too good to turn down.
Cafu and Nathan, who have been based in Las Vegas the past week, fly to Dallas tomorrow, and have their first media assignment with Rodriguez on Tuesday.
Victory over Rodriguez — the top-ranked junior-bantamweight in the world and the seventh-best pound-for-pound fighter on The Ring magazine list — would launch him into the stratosphere of world boxing, taking him places no South African has ever been.
Brian Mitchell, the WBA junior-lightweight champion, was given a draw in his unification title against IBF counterpart Tony Lopez in 1991, a fight he deserved to win. He righted that wrong in a rematch later that year, but only after relinquishing his own belt.
The last time a South African beat an international superstar was back in 2003 when Sanders demolished Wladimir Klitschko, then the heir apparent to Lennox Lewis.
Malinga stunned Nigel Benn in 1996, and Vic Toweel dethroned the great Manuel Ortiz in 1950, but South African failures against international stars have been prevalent, like Phillip Ndou against Floyd Mayweather, Lehlohonolo Ledwaba against Manny Pacquiao, Vuyani Bungu against Naseem Hamed, and Moruti Mthalane against Nonito Donaire
The list of tragedies outweighs the successes by some margin, but Cafu is looking to alter that.
• Both bills will be streamed on DAZN.
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