In a dramatic move, Golden Gloves on Monday morning refused to pay cruiserweight Vikapita Meroro, who controversially quit in the fifth round of his fight against Kevin Lerena at Emperors Palace on Saturday.
Instead, promoter Rodney Berman lodged the fight purse with Boxing South Africa pending an investigation into the Namibian’s performance.
“He quit, plain and simple,” raged Berman, who insisted Meroro was in no imminent danger.
Despite a brief first-round trip to the canvas, Meroro comfortably handled Lerena’s punches, only to inexplicably raise his arms in surrender in the fifth. Lerena was happy to get the win, but apologised to his fans on social media, saying he would have preferred a more conclusive ending.
“We have an obligation to the public to produce good fights. The public pay good money, Emperors Palace pays good money and SuperSport pays good money. I can’t overlook that,” said Berman.
Claims have since emerged from various sources that Meroro had openly bragged about fighting “just for the money” and would be retiring anyway.
Even so, his lame surrender cast an unfair shadow across Lerena’s performance and left a sour taste in the mouths of fight fans.
Indeed, it was significantly different to the earlier action when Joey Canoy’s corner pulled him out of the fray against Hekkie Budler. Canoy had been manfully sucking up punishment and was willing to fight on, but his corner took the decision out of his hands.
Meroro, by contrast, took the easy exit and will now almost certainly pay the price for doing so.
