In boxing, one great night can lead to a series of big fights, especially in the heavyweight division.
Jarrell Miller and Lenier Pero know this all too well heading into Saturday’s bout at the Fontainebleau in Las Vegas. The fight is a WBA heavyweight eliminator.
The 37-year-old Miller enters the bout off a split decision win over Kingsley Ibeh in January. Miller, 27-1-2 (22 KOs), lost his wig in the fight and didn’t look his best. At the press conference on Thursday, looking slimmer than earlier this year, he admitted that his path to victory might not be pretty but he believes he will run over Pero.
“I am going to have fun beating his ass,” Miller said at the press conference. “I am going to paint his face bloody red come Saturday night.”
Pero, 13-0 (8 KOs), was not keen on Miller’s trash talk.
“He would be a great commentator, because you love the microphone,” Pero said back via translator at the press conference.
Miller, of North Bellmore, New York, added a new wrinkle to this camp, training in Philadelphia with “Bozy” Ennis, the father and trainer of Jaron “Boots” Ennis.
“He better not run forward,” Ennis said at the press conference. “If he comes forward, he is going to catch hell.”
The 33-year-old Pero is coming off a 10-round unanimous decision over Jordan Thompson in November. Cuba’s Pero, who held his training camps in Las Vegas with trainer Bob Santos, is ready for the pre-fight stuff to be over. He wants his talking to happen on fight night.
“He has been talking a lot of bullshit, as you say in English, but that doesn’t affect my psychology in any way,” Pero said. “I am going to go in there and break him, and like the old-school fighters who never spoke on social media and did their talking in the ring with their fists, that is exactly what I am going to do.”
The unknown is where this road leads. The winner will fight for the WBA heavyweight title, but will unified and former undisputed heavyweight titleholder Oleksandr Usyk still have the belt? Usyk, who will face kickboxer Rico Verhoeven on May 23, appears to be focusing on spectacle bouts, which begs the question whether Miller or Pero will fit the bill for one of his final fights.
Still, the Miller-Pero winner immediately becomes a name in the division. Even if they don’t hold a title, they will be a capable and credible challenger for fighters such as Anthony Joshua and Moses Itauma, to name a few. Or they could challenge Murat Gassiev, the WBA regular heavyweight titleholder.
The bout comes down to the mauling pressure of Miller versus Pero’s technical boxing ability. Yet Pero’s team cautions Miller about believing he will be able to walk down Pero.
“Easier said than done,” Santos said. “When he gets inside that squared circle, he is going to find out he is in there with the best guy he ever fought, and take that to the bank.”
Lucas Ketelle is the author of “Inside the Ropes of Boxing,” a guide for young fighters, a writer for BoxingScene and a member of the Boxing Writers Association of America. Find him on X at @BigDogLukie.
