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Sunday, July 20, 2025

Rivas set to face O'Neil in WBC clash

by

Walter Alibey - Senior Sports Reporter
2140 days ago
20190910
Gwendoline O’Neil to face Lorissa Rivas for WBC title

Gwendoline O’Neil to face Lorissa Rivas for WBC title

T&T's box­er Loris­sa Ri­vas is set to clash with vet­er­an Guyanese fight­er Gwen­do­line O’Neil for the va­cant WBC heavy­weight ti­tle, Sep­tem­ber 28 at the Cen­tral Re­gion­al In­door Sports Are­na, Saith Park in Ch­agua­nas.

Ri­vas, 37, who re­sides in the Unit­ed States has been on the come­back trail late­ly and has had two vic­to­ries last year to jump­start her re­turn. Her clash with O'Neil, who is al­so known as af­fec­tion­ate­ly 'Big Red' will be the first WBC fe­male heavy­weight clash to take place on lo­cal soil.

At a press con­fer­ence to an­nounce Ri­vas' op­po­nent for the fight, pro­mot­er Aman­da Potts said O’Neil is no stranger to suc­cess, with a record of 19 wins, with sev­en by way of knock out, sev­en loss­es and two draws.

"She has won many World ti­tles for her coun­try and she has been well award­ed. Her gov­ern­ment gave her a house, land and $5 mil­lion as a re­ward for her achieve­ments," the young Potts, who has been fol­low­ing in the foot­steps of her fa­ther Boxu Potts, said.

She de­scribed O'Neil as a very dogged, in-your-face fight­er, who will be a very for­mi­da­ble op­po­nent, who has won many ti­tles, such as WI­BA Light Heavy­weight World Ti­tle, WI­BA Heavy­weight World Ti­tle, GBU Heavy­weight World Ti­tle and UBF heavy­weight world ti­tle. She has al­so had the op­por­tu­ni­ty of fight­ing the likes of Laila Ali.

"She is re-writ­ing his­to­ry just as George Fore­man and Bernard Hop­kins, fight­ing late in their ca­reers. We can al­so make men­tion of Di­ana Nyad, a 64-year-old woman who swam from Cu­ba to Flori­da. So we have to re­spect these ath­letes when they go through the rigours of prepar­ing their body and at­tempt­ing to get in a ring to make their coun­try proud," the ju­nior Potts ex­plained.

On­ly re­cent­ly Ri­vas and her team re­ceived the sup­port of the of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter, through a hand­some $75, 000. And Potts, so ap­pre­cia­tive of the ini­tia­tive, said she wants to re­pay with a win, how­ev­er, he called on cor­po­rate T&T to come on board and make this his­toric vic­to­ry hap­pen.

The fight will be the fea­tured bout of the card. it will al­so in­clude a clash be­tween Prince-Lee Isidore and Em­manuel Her­rera for the RBO In­ter­na­tion­al light­weight ti­tle as the co-main bout.

Al­so on the card: Yu­ray Cisen­ero Pre­cal will be up against Aron Williams: Kevon Di­az ver­sus Leon Dover: Joel McRea fac­ing Nigel 'Cow' Ed­wards and for­mer T&T heavy­weight cham­pi­on Kert­son Man­swell up against Elvis de Je­sus Gar­cia.

Ac­cord­ing to Potts "We are aware from Ri­vas’ camp that O’Neil is a more dif­fi­cult op­po­nent than An­nie Maze­rolle. We have to change our game plan, as she’s go­ing to be a much more busy fight­er, and she’s go­ing to give more an­gles. It is our knowl­edge she

has been in train­ing for the past year."


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