The face standing across the ring from him and the time of their confrontation has changed many times in the past two months but for Wanganui-born boxer Robert Berridge, the time to make a statement is Thursday night.
Southpaw Berridge (20-1-1, 16 KO) will be the main fight on theundercard of the Hydr8 Zero NZNBF heavyweight title match between Joseph Parker v Afa Tatupu at Auckland's Trusts Arena. He will be taking on Argentina's Mariano Jose Riva (11-4), a 36-year-old light heavyweight who had a long 160 fight amateur career and trained in both Cuba and Russia. It will be eight three-minute rounds right before the main event. The 28-year-old Berridge had begun making noises on the scene before he signed with the card promoters Duco Events in late August, having won both New Zealand and Asian titles this year. Berridge had originally been going to take on Lower Hutt's John Roil on the undercard of David Tua's comeback fight against Alexander Ustinov at Hamilton's Claudelands Arena on August 31.
However, a Tua injury saw that fight pushed back to November with Duco Events setting up the Parker vs Tatupu card in the interim, where Berridge was going to face Adrian Taihia, the NZPBA Super Middleweight title holder.
This was changed again and Berridge will now match up against Riva who Duco's press release says is known as La Nutria (The Otter) "because he chops down his opponents".
Berridge's moniker "the Butcher" is also appropriate given his knockouts of some quality opponents, but he must remain wary of Riva. The Argentine lost his only other overseas professional match to Australian Zac Dunn in March, but since then has knocked out his next two opponents in the first round. He has also stopped four other boxers inside of four rounds.
