SAKARIA ‘Desert Storm’ Lukas will aim to get back to winning ways when he takes on the experienced Mexican, Mario Macias in an international featherweight fight in Cancun, Mexico on Friday night.
Lukas was due to fight Jessie Magdaleno in a WBC featherweight world title eliminator last March, but the fight fell through at the last minute due to Covid-19.
Since then he suffered his first pro defeat against Mexican Isaac Avelar last December when he lost on a unanimous points decision, but he still has an impressive record of 23 wins and one defeat, although at the age of 36, time is not on his side.
Lukas’s manager Immanuel Moses, however, said that Lukas, who was once ranked amongst the top five featherweights in the world by the WBO, was determined to get back to the top.
“He has been training since he returned from the States last December and is in great shape. He is determined to get back to the top of the world boxing rankings, while we have a few more fights lined up for him in the States” he said.
Lukas, though, faces a tough opponent in Macias, who is a year younger at 35, but much more experienced with a pro record of 28 wins and 22 defeats.
Some of those defeats, however, came against top opponents like the WBA world super featherweight champion Gervonta ‘Tank’ Davis and the WBC interim world lightweight champion Ryan Garcia, as well as the Mexican Moises Flores, who beat Namibia’s Paulus Ambunda in 2016 to win the IBO world super bantamweight title.
“Macias is a veteran boxer who has fought top boxers like Gervonta Davis and Ryan Garcia, so he is an experienced boxer and will be a tough opponent, but we are prepared and ready for him,” Moses said.
Moses, however, added that their preparations in Windhoek were hampered due to a lack of adequate training space.
“Because of the Covid-19 pandemic I couldn’t rent the AC Boxing Gym in town, because we didn’t have enough customers, so Lukas had to prepare for this fight on an old tennis court at the Katutura hospital.
“It’s really a sad state of affairs that our boxers don’t have a space to prepare properly and I’m appealing to sponsors and especially the government to avail space for us to train. There’s a lot of space in this country, and there are a lot of government buildings standing empty, so I’d like them to put it to good use,” he said.
Lukas already left for Mexico a week ago where he has joined up with some of Moses’ partners from the United States.
“We are getting great support from our partners in the States, who include our promoter Scott Farrell and the Mexican trainer Nelson Lopez who is based in Miami,” he said.
“We have two more fights scheduled for Sakkie in the States over the next few months. We still have to finalise the opponents but the next one will be in Atlanta next month and I will then join him for that one,” he added.