WBA’s Latest Rankings Includes New Zealand’s Alrie Meleisea and Lani Daniels

From New Zealand Boxrec Editor – Benjamin Watt:

Two New Zealand boxers ranked in World rankings

On 31st of October WBA released the last World boxing rankings with two New Zealand boxers in their Light Heavyweight (their version of the Heavyweight) division.

Alrie Meleisea was Ranked 5th in the WBA and 4th on Boxrec, but been inactive since November 2017. She returned to boxing September 8th after a draw with Sarah Long. Since the return, Alrie received a ranking of 8th on Boxrec and now recently announced, received a ranking of 3rd in WBA.

Lani Daniels was ranked 9th in WBA when she was leading into the World title fight against Geoevana Peres. Lani went on to fight Tessa Tualevao in August this year. Leading into the fight she received a ranking of 5th in WBA. Now after two draws with Tessa, Lani is now ranked 10th on Boxrec and 4th in the WBA division.

With these rankings recently released, a discussion has started to see if a fight between Alrie Meleisea and Lani Daniels can happen for the vacant WBA World Light Heavyweight title. Lani Daniels trainer and Manager John Conway commented: “This would be a world-class fight that is easy to be made as both fighters team will be keen for a world title fight. As both girls are rank highly in the world, and rightfully so, it’s almost a crime for this fight not to take place.” Alrie Meleisea trainer and manager Vasco Kovačević agreed and said: “This will be a good fight”.

Lani Daniels regular promoter Bruce Glozier stated: “Haven’t thought about that but having two kiwis compete for any world title is a good thing”. Lani Daniels has recently been focusing on going down in weight to the Super Welterweight division. But John Conway stated “We fight at the weight which is best for us at the time” meaning they would fight in the Light Heavyweight division for the World title. Alrie generally fights around 90 kgs in her pro boxing career but her team is adamant that she can fight at 79 kgs. “Some of Alrie’s best fight performances were at 73-75kgs” Vaso said.

So a discussion has begun to see if this is a possibility. When asked if he would promote the fight, Bruce Glozier didn’t reveal anything but did say “Anything is a possibility wouldn’t rule it out”. Only time will tell if this will happen but this is pretty exciting news for New Zealand boxing. This could also lead to the winner fighting Geovana Peres for a unification World title bout but the fight needs to happen first.