Maurice Kambukwe
Namibia’s undefeated featherweight boxer Sakaria ‘Desert Storm’ Lukas will tomorrow make his much-anticipated American debut at New York’s Hulu Theater at Madison Square Garden when he confronts America’s Jessie Magdaleno in what is expected to be a thrilling 10-round featherweight bout.
Before boarding the plane to the ‘Land of free dreams’ to confront Magdaleno in his biggest career fight to date, Lukas promised he will squeeze out every tiny drop of sweat in his body to make sure he defeats the quicksilver American.
The 35-year old undefeated Namibian pugilist, who is still paddling a squeaky clean record of 28 wins from the same number of professional fights, will square off against Magdaleno in the main undercard fight to American Shakur Stevenson’s WBO featherweight title defence against Miguel Marriaga of Colombia.
The 28-year old Magdaleno, who comes into tomorrow’s fight with 27 wins and one defeat from 28 fights, is a former champion who only experienced one loss in his career to Isaac Dogboe in 2018 and looks to get back into the title picture with a win over Lukas.
Magdaleno has eighteen stoppage victories, two more than Lukas. Both boxers have been fairly active in the past three years. Magdaleno fought twice in 2019, once in 2018, and once in 2017, while Lukas on the other hand fought twice in 2019 and three times in 2017.
World renowned trainer Jorge Capetillo, who is Magdaleno’s trainer, also shared his views on tomorrow’s fight and told www.maxboxing.com that: “He [Lukas] is undefeated, he is 23-0, with 16 KO’s, and he will be strong and tough and will have a lot of heart. African fighters bring that to fights along with their other skills. Jessie knows it will be a tough opponent, but he is ready and in very good shape and is looking forward to putting in a good performance and showing the other champions he is ready for a world title. Jessie really took a look at who was around him and where he was at in his career after the loss to Dogboe. He moved up in weight to featherweight and he feels very good and very strong at featherweight. He has looked very good in his last two fights and I think he is definitely going to be fighting for a world title this year.”
– mkambukwe@nepc.com.na