Ludumo Lamati heads into away territory tonight for a potentially career changing fight. The rangy South African featherweight collides with Nick Ball on the Luis Alberto Lopez Vs Michael Conlan undercard in Belfast this evening.
A clash of undefeated fighters with a WBC silver title on the line makes this one of the fights to watch at the SSE Arena. He comes in as the away fighter, but knows the UK very well having spent the best part of a year training in Bracknell with Keith Marner, promoted by Siesta Boxing.
Lamati (21-0, 11 KOs) did grace the ring on British shores in 2019 with an 8 round victory over Brayan Mairena. For one reason or another he found himself back fighting in his native South Africa.
“That was all preparing me for this fight.” Lamati said in an exclusive interview for ProBox TV.
“That is all I can really say about my time in the UK. I found out a lot about British fighters and I sparred many rounds with a lot of them. It was great to engage with the boxing style here. Now I finally have my shot, it’s a great shot too. Colin Nathan put the fight together, he called my manager about this fight and I got very excited.
“It will be a new experience. I don’t think Nick will show me anything new, not taking anything away from him. He’s an exciting fighter, but there is nothing he will bring that I don’t know how to deal with. I’ve been a professional for almost ten years now and I’ve had five more fights than him, all these things count. But, he is young and he is fresh.”
Lamati has been involved within in the top 10 of the WBC rankings for sometime. When I had the pleasure of working with him in Bracknell four years ago, the plan was to engineer a world title opportunity. If successful against Ball tonight that dream will be in touching distance.
“Like I said, it was a journey that was preparing me for now.” Lamati added. “Maybe it just wasn’t the right time. It was the process to build me for this opportunity. I have a great team behind me, I’m ready and nothing is going to stop me now. Nothing!”