Tweed Daily News
RISING Gold Coast boxing star Les “Lock and Load” Sherrington (25-5, 16 KOs) will make the first defence of his WBF interim world super middleweight championship at the Gold Coast Convention Centre on April 24.
Sherrington will defend against former IBF and WBA world title challenger Antwun “Kid Dynamite” Echols (34-12-4, 29 KOs) from the United States in a much anticipated shootout.
The 27-year-old Australian was in hot form last year, winning the PABA title in May and then easily accounting for veteran contender Shannan Taylor to annex the WBF interim honour to climb to number 14 on the WBA rankings.
Echols, too, is no mug, generally regarded as one of the better fighters not to wear a world championship belt over the past decade. He went the scheduled 12 rounds against Anthony Mundine for the vacant WBA super middleweight title in 2003.
He is a former two-division holder of the highly-regarded United States Boxing Association and North American Boxing Federation titles and has on three occasions fought for a major world crown.
He gave future Hall of Famer Bernard Hopkins two tough bouts.
“Against Echols, Les will need another first-class performance,” promoter Jamie Myer said.
“Anything less could spell disaster for him as he needs a win to put himself in a position for a tilt at the prestigous WBA crown (held by California’s 2004 Olympic gold medalist Andre Ward).”
Sherrington is on a six-bout wining streak and has lost just one of his past 16 outings.
However, apart from Taylor and Wiliam Gare – who defeated him in South Africa – the Townsville-born boxer has not faced anywhere near the level of Echols.
With four of his losses being by knockout, albeit all in his first 14 starts, Echols’ camp will no doubt fancy its chances for a quick victory.
Echols’ record shows he is dangerous from the start.
He has scored six first-round knockouts and boasts wins over ex-IBF super middleweight champ Chales Brewer (KO 3), Richard Grant (KO 3) in a world title eliminator, Brian Barbosa (KO 9) to win the USBA and NABF unified titles, and unanimously out-pointed world title challenger Karem Salam.
Source: tweednews.com.au
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