Lerena Reclaims the Mountaintop: “Two Guns” Clinches WBC International Title in Brutal 10-Round War

It was a night where every punch carried the weight of a six-year absence, and every round tested the absolute limits of physical endurance. On Saturday night at the Sandton Convention Centre, Kevin “Two Guns” Lerena proved that his return to cruiserweight was no vanity project. In front of a sold-out crowd at Knockout Chaos 3: The Return, the 34-year-old South African outlasted a fiercely resilient Scott Forrest to capture the vacant WBC International Cruiserweight title by unanimous decision.

The scorecards, 97-92, 97-92, and 98-91, reflected Lerena’s overall control, but they barely tell the story of the sheer punishment absorbed by both men over thirty gruelling minutes.

Lerena, stepping into the ring 16 kilograms lighter than his heavyweight peak just months ago, looked sharp, powerful, and remarkably fresh. From the opening bell, he established his dominance, stalking the Scotsman from his southpaw stance and landing piercing straight lefts and crunching body shots. Time and again, particularly in the closing seconds of the early rounds, Lerena landed heavy artillery that visibly wobbled Forrest. The bell repeatedly intervened just as the South African seemed primed for the finish.

But Forrest, a decorated amateur with a jaw apparently carved from granite, refused to fold. Despite bleeding heavily from his nose and mouth by the midway point, the Scotsman continuously fired back, maintaining a high work rate and walking through Lerena’s best shots to land his own straight rights. Forrest’s finest moment came in the eighth round, capitalizing on a lull in Lerena’s output to press forward and bank a clear round on the judges’ cards.

“Scott made that fight inch by inch,” veteran trainer Peter Smith acknowledged post-fight. “Scott, I never underestimated you one bit. And proof is in the pudding. Look what happened… It wasn’t a [walkover], every round was just on the edge. It was so beautiful.”

The fight’s crescendo arrived in the tenth and final round. Knowing he was comfortably ahead, Lerena could have coasted. Instead, he hunted for the exclamation point, finally dropping the exhausted Scotsman to the canvas with less than a minute remaining. In a display of pure warrior spirit, Forrest hauled himself up and survived the final onslaught to hear the final bell.

For Lerena, the victory is a profound vindication of his gruelling physical transformation and his uncompromising mindset.

“I believe one of my better performances, my first performance back at cruiserweight, and four months ago I weighed 107 [kg],” a grateful Lerena said in his post-fight interview, praising his opponent’s toughness. “He brings experience from the amateurs and he’s going to be there all night. So you need to stay tight and take your time… A very tight fighter makes very few mistakes. So we have to capitalize on his mistakes.”

The dual triumph of headlining and promoting a successful card under his Aquila Boxing Promotions banner cements Lerena’s status as the current patriarch of South African boxing. Now ranked number six in the WBC cruiserweight division, his roadmap is clear.

“The division is hot,” Lerena stated, noting Oleksandr Usyk’s potential return to the weight class. “So I need to sit tight. I need to jockey for position, get myself on the fence, and wait for my shot. And that’s what I’m going to do.”

He came back down to 200 pounds to become a three-time world champion. On Saturday night, Kevin Lerena took the first bloody, beautiful step toward that mountaintop.