When Lenar Perez first told his mom, Irania, that he planned to leave their native Cuba to pursue a pro boxing career, she cried for a week.
By the summer of 2018 has spent years nursing fantasies of her son becoming the country’s top light-heavyweight, leading Cuba’s amateur boxing dynasty into the 2020s, and bringing an Olympic gold medal back to Holguin, a city of 355,000 in the island’s eastern region. Moving abroad to turn pro would mean the death of her dream.
But Perez, then a 20-year-old rising star fresh off a gold medal in the 2018 Teofilo Stevenson Cup, a prestigious domestic tournament, had his own vision for his family’s future. It included world titles and main events in packed arenas, but it pivoted on simple things, like a new house for Irania. Not a mansion. Just something bigger than the tiny home in which he grew up, a place that didn’t leak during heavy rains.
Cuba’s boxing federation had their own plans for Perez, and promised they would elevate him to the top National Team spot in his weight class, but only after the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris had ended.
Photo: IG – Lenar Perez
Perez pondered the offer but decided he couldn’t wait six years for a promotion, then four more years for a gold medal. He left Cuba and settled in Vladikavkaz, Russia that summer.
Eight years and a string of impressive knockouts later, Perez, now 28 is within shouting distance of a world ranking at cruiserweight, and set to make his North American debut. March 5 he’ll take on the durable veteran Isaac Chilemba of Malawi, in the co-main event of an Eye of the Tiger card at Casino de Montréal.
Perez, who is undefeated, has scored knockouts in 14 of his 15 wins, but insists he won’t press for a stoppage against Chilemba, who has gone the distance with knockout punchers like Sergey Kovalev and Osleys Iglesias. Instead, Perez says knockouts come when he focuses on the craft, and that his only plans are to have fun and to turn first-time spectators into new fans.
“I want to show them something special in the ring,” said Perez, who grew up idolizing American pros like Floyd Mayweather and Terence Crawford. “Something new. I want them to watch me fight again.”
Photo: IG – Lenar Perez vs Aleksei Egorov
Next Thursday marks Perez’ first bout since last April, when he won a 10-round decision over Aleksei Egorov to claim the IBA Pro Intercontinental title. From here, provided that he stays healthy and active, Perez can see a path to a title with one of the major pro sanctioning bodies. He’s already ranked #12 by the IBF, where Australia’s Jai Opetaia is champion, and #3 by the WBA, whose champion, Gilberto Ramirez, faces light-heavyweight dynamo David Benavidez in May.
For Perez, a title reign is both a personal coal and a point of national pride.
“It’s really important for me to represent Cuban boxing,” said Perez, who shares a hometown with legendary Cuban amateur boxer Mario Kindelan. “Especially right now, because we don’t have many world champions.”
Among current pros who came up in Cuba’s amateur boxing system, only 42-year-old middleweight Erislandy Lara holds a world title, while fellow Cuban Yoenlis Hernandez is the top contender to Lara’s WBA title.
Photo: IG – Lenar Perez and Albert Ramirez
One weight class north, of course, you’ll find Iglesias, who faces Pavel Silyagin for the IBF title in Montreal April 9, and who grew up with Perez in Cuba, sharing training camps and national team trips. Both men left Cuba in their early 20s, weary of waiting indefinitely for top-tier national team assignments, and both have blossomed into power punchers as pros – Iglesias in Germany and Perez splitting his time between Russia and Toulouse, France.
“Footwork, power punching, body shots… they were things I didn’t know about before,” said Perez, who trains alongside WBA interim light-heavyweight champion Albert Ramirez. “I didn’t know about that before. Now I understand how it works.”
Perez says he has spent the 11 months between bouts building even more physical strength and punching power, a recurring theme in a career defined as much by layoffs as his 14-fight knockout streak.
He spent 2021 in managerial limbo and unable to compete, then received a call to face an undefeated prospect named Rashid Kodzoev in Moscow in February of 2022. Perez says Kodzoev’s promoters targeted him because of his inactivity, and assumed that his absence from fight cards also meant that he hadn’t been training.
They assumed wrong.
Photo: IG – Lenar Perez
Perez had been in the gym, turning himself from an amateur who punched to score points into a pro who aimed to do damage. He dispatched Kodzoev in Round 4.
Perez expects a similarly emphatic win against Chilemba, and to put himself a big step closer to a world championship in the process.
A title belt isn’t the type of gold Irania envisioned for her son, but he suspects she’ll be happy if he brings one home to Holguin.
She can display it in her new house.
The one Lenar bought her.
It’s more spacious than their old place, and the roof never leaks no matter how hard it rains.
“Now she knows it was for the best,” he said. “This is what had to happen in our lives.”
