Ryad Merhy (31-1 26KOs) will travel to South Africa this Saturday May 13th to face South African Kevin Lerena (28-2 14KOs) in a WBC Bridgerweight Title Eliminator. The winner will face the newly crowned champion Lukasz Rozanski (15-0 14KOs). Rozanski blitz Alen Babic inside of a round in his home country Poland on April 22nd.
Merhy 30, the former WBA Regular Cruiserweight Champion from Belgium, enters this fight on a 7 fight winning streak. Current WBA Cruiserweight Champion Arsen Goulamirian stopped Merhy in 11th round of their 2018 title fight.
Lerena 31, nearly shocked the world in his last fight vs Daniel Dubois for the WBA Regular Heavyweight title on December 3, 2023 on the undercard of Tyson Fury vs Dereck Chisora trilogy undercard. Lerena dropped Dubois three times in the 1st round. Dubois overcame a torn ACL and rallied to stop Lerena in the 3rd round in a shootout.
Merhy vs Lerena is a 50/50 matchup on paper which could turn out to be a highly entertaining fight.
I was not sure what to think about this new division. Given the wbc history I’ll be honest I thought this could turn into a disaster and be a pointless division. I was wrong these guys are fighting each other and it’s given the smaller heavyweight a bigger platform. As long it keeps going like this I have no complaints about this division.
great fight