Kevin Lerena takes on new role in new boxing promotional outfit Aquila

WBC bridgerweight champion Kevin Lerena has become the face of a new local boxing promotion that will stage its first show in Johannesburg on March 15.

Lerena said he was the brand ambassador for Aquila Boxing Promotions (ABP), which was owned by one person but backed by a business consortium, all of whom wanted to stay in the background.

The focus would be development.

The venue for the first show would be finalised soon, Lerena said, adding they had already secured SuperSport as the broadcaster and signed two sponsors, World Sports Betting and Tigris Wealth.

“There’s a lot of promoters that are registered in the country, but I think there’s not a lot of guys putting on tournaments,” said Lerena, who is likely to defend his world title abroad around April or May.

“If we can do four tournaments a year that allows for fighters to get busy and to help grow and develop the sport, that’ll be good.

“My goal is just to help grow and develop the sport and essentially think from a fighter’s point of view of how some fighters don’t get the opportunity to fight so they become inactive.

“This is giving them a platform to develop their skills.”

Lerena said they were open to all fighters, male and female, as long as they weren’t contracted to other promoters.

ABP doesn’t intend to sign fighters.

“We only have four shows a year, so how do we sign boxers when we can only get them fighting four times a year? We want to invite all boxers to fight on our platform.

“We’re not signing any boxers, we're looking to build fighters, meaning that we're looking to give fighters across the country a platform to fight four times a year ...

“We want to grow the sport, and you grow the sport by allowing all boxers from all over the country to fight on our shows if there is space.”

Lerena believed that for South African boxing to flourish, promoters needed to work together.

“In a perfect world, what I envision is all promoters working together — that’s the way the best fights will happen. If they put the egos aside all promoters can sit around the table to make the best fights happen within the borders.

“That is the only way we’ll be able to grow the sport in South Africa,” said Lerena.

Should some of the boxers they stage improve to international level, ABP would be able to assist them. “We could guide them.”

Lerena said his intended world title defence in Ukraine had fallen through after it had been put back a month from the original February 29 date.

Late March would interfere with another planned fight against Briton Richard Riakporhe “in April or May”.