SOUTH AFRICAN heavyweight Kevin Lerena is hopeful of an upset win when he faces Lawrence Okolie at Wembley Satadium next month.
Okolie, 21-1 (16 KOs), knocked out Krzysztof Glowacki in 2021 to claim the WBO cruiserweight world title and made three title defences before a surprise defeat to Chris Billam-Smith ended his reign in 2023.
Since then, the Londoner has run through Lukasz Rozanski to pick up the WBC bridgerweight title and then debuted at heavyweight in December, where he registered a second consecutive opening round knockout against Hussein Muhamed.
Now ranked as the WBC #1 heavyweight contender, Okolie is well poised for a shot at the coveted green and gold heavyweight title, but faces his first real test in the division against Lerena, 31-3 (15 KOs), on the Usyk-Dubois undercard in London.
Speaking to Boxing News, Lerena admitted that there will be ‘no room for error’ when he and Okolie go toe-to-toe but maintained that his style will cause problems for the home fighter.
“He is a very good boxer, he is a long, rangy guy,” Lerena said. “He is going to throw a lot of backhands, a lot of long right-hands and he is going to work behind his jabb. But I have the knack of taking the jab away and I have got the knack of making them miss and making them pay.
“I am by no means a technical, awkward, boring southpaw,” he added. “I come to fight but I think I need to be calculated in my approach with Lawrence. I will come to fight but I will come to fight with precision and no mistakes, there is no room for error in there and there is definitely no room for mistakes against Lawrence Okolie.”
Lerena is on a 3-2 run in his last five outings. The two defeats earned ‘The KO Kid’ heaps of credit but both took place outside of South Africa.
Against Dubois, Lerena floored the now IBF heavyweight champion three times in the opening round before being stopped himself in the third. While in March 2024 he came close to stopping Justis Huni in the final round of their battle in Saudi Arabia.
Learning from those mistakes, Lerena went on to reveal his plans for a more ‘calculated’ attitude when he has his man hurt in the future.
“I need to finish them, I know that I can hurt them,” he said. “They all know that I have got explosive hands and that I have got power in my punches but when I have them hurt I have got to finish them.
“I think that there is a calculated way to do that, sometimes throwing the kitchen sink at them and going balls to the wall is not the answer, it is about picking your shots.
“You can throw a flurry of 25 punches but if only two land it is meaningless. So, you have got to be calculated and that it what I am looking to do in this fight, should I get that opportunity.”
