Perez: I am two steps away from bringing a World title back to Ireland

MIKE ‘The Rebel’ Perez is confident he will take a massive step toward becoming the first Cuban professional heavyweight champion of the World and bringing a World title back to Ireland on July 26.

The Cork based Cuban knows victory over Byrant Jennings in a Madison Square WBC World title eliminator will secure him a shot at the winner of Deontay Wilder and Bermane Stiverne’s World title fight.

The undefeated heavyweight admits he doesn’t know too much about his undefeated opponent other than he will be defeated on the undercard of Gennady Golovkin versus Daniel Geale.

“I don’t know what type of fight to expect, but I know you can expect victory from me. The World title is two steps away now,” Perez told World Boxing News.

“The first step is against Jennings and then I will fight for the World title. I was World Junior champions as an amateur, but I always wanted to become World champion as a professional. Cuba has never had a World heavyweight champion in the history of professional boxing- so that would be special and it would also bring a World title back to Ireland which would be special for the people there.”

Although didn’t lose last time out Perez wasn’t overly impressive against Carlos Takam, an occurrence made understandable by the fact the former Prizefighter winner went into the bout on the back of seriously injuring Magomed Abdusalamov in his fight previous.

Speaking about his most recent diplay Perez explained.

“It wasn’t the best performance of my career against Takam, but the important thing was to stay on track for my dream of becoming World heavyweight champion.

“Takam is a good fight but I went into that fight under a lot of pressure after the tragic injury to Magomed- so the preparation for the fight with Takam was difficult.”