US-BASED journeyman Rey Perez is seeing action on Sept. 7, 2020 (PH time) in a 10-rounder against 2016 Olympian and one-time world title challenger Batyr Akhmedov at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles, California.
The 29-year-old Perez is coming back from a long layoff and is looking to score an upset over Akhmedov.
Perez last fought on Jan. 19, 2019 in a lopsided unanimous decision defeat to Manny Pacquiao’s sparring partner George Kambosos Jr. in Las Vegas.
Perez is 3-5 in his campaign in the US. However, all three of his wins were against legitimate boxers in former world title challenger Roberto Marroquin and once promising young fighter Christian Gonzalez, whom he beat twice.
Perez boasts of his tough chin, in which he was stopped twice. He’s also very experienced and faced but lost to the likes of two-time world champion Nobuo Nashiro, two-division world titleholder Hugo Fidel Cazares and former World Boxing Organization super bantamweight king Jessie Magdaleno.
Akhmedov, in the meantime, is coming off a unanimous decision loss to Mario Barrios in a 12-round bout for the vacant World Boxing Association (WBA) light welterweight belt on Sept. 28, 2019.
After a stint in the 2016 Olympics, Akhmedov made his pro debut the following year with a third round stoppage of unknown Dmitry Lavrinenko. He won the WBA Inter-Continental belt with a unanimous decision victory over Filipino Ricky Sismundo and then defended his belt against former interim world champion Ismael Barroso in 2018.
Perez is 24-11 with eight knockouts, while Akhmedov is 7-1 with six knockouts. / EKA