Geovana Peres vs Claire Hafner was a world title fight that took place on 4 October 2019 at SkyCity Convention Centre in Auckland, New Zealand. Peres won the fight by referee stoppage between the 8th and 9th round. This was considered a history making moment with Geovana Peres is first New Zealand female boxer to win and successfully defend a World title in her home country. Geovana Peres is also the first LGBT person representing New Zealand to hold a World Boxing title. Claire Hafner born in USA but considers herself a Canadian. She came into the fight ranked first on Boxrec, ranked above Geovana who was ranked second.
History
Background
Geovana Peres won her WBO World Light Heavyweight title back on 30 March against Lani Daniels, dubbed History in the making. Peres won the fight by Unanimous Decision. Claire Hafner won her first boxing title fight back on 29 September 2018 against former World number 1 Sonja Fox, winning the ABO American female heavyweight title. Claire Reached Number 1 ranking status after she defeated former WBC World title contender Carlette Ewell back in June 15, 2019. Claire Hafner dropped down in weight for the fight against Peres, Losing 9 kg for the fight. On 5 May 2019, Bruce Glozier announced that he was in negotiations for Geovana Peres first World title defence with Claire Hafner. Shortly after, the fight it was announced that Steve Deane joined Bruce Glozier to form a new sport promoting company called Rival Sports Promotion. At this time they signed a three-fight deal with both Geovana Peres and Lani Daniels. On 31 July, it was announced that the fight between Peres and Hafner was official. To promote the fight, Peres did a World first by doing boxing pad training on top of the Auckland Sky Tower 193 metres in the air. Leading up to the event it was noted that there was no fight or training material of Claire Hafner on the internet. Due to this, Peres had to literally train for everything as they did not know what to expect. Peres had some fights online which gave Hafner some material to study and train with. A few days before the fight, the two boxers met up with each other for the first time at a media and photo shoot at Cheltenham Beach. Hafner said to media that she is exactly what she expected and was very confident leading into the fight.
Fight Card
Fight details
Geovana Peres vs Claire Hafner was held at SkyCity Convention Centre in Auckland, New Zealand. Tickets for the fight went on sale on 31 July 2019 after Bruce Glozier announced that general admission and corporate tables tickets starting from $65. Rival Sports Promotion elected to distribute the tickets themselves through the event Facebook page and their website. They sold out the event with a little over 1000 tickets between General Admission and Corporate tables. The announcer of the night was Daniel Hennessey. Hennessey is well known in New Zealand as he announced Joseph Parker, Jeff Horn, King in the ring and all the major world title fights that has happened in New Zealand and Australia. Singapore born Australian Phil Austin served as the in-ring referee, and New Zealanders Arden Fatu, Ioana Schwalger and Australian Chris Condon were the ringside judges. Danny Leigh served as the supervisor and representative for the WBO. Before the fight began, the national anthem was sung for Canada and New Zealand. What was impressive was Claire Hafner sang the Canadian national anthem before her fight with an amazing opera voice.
Broadcasting
It was announced that the event will be televised through Sky Sports on Sky TV, with a Live broadcast. It was also announced that Samoa will broadcast the fight live on Samoa TV3.
Weigh in
On 3 October 2019 the Weigh in was held at Skycity Auckland at Sammy's which is located on the Gaming Floor in the casino.
Recap
Aftermath
After the Fight Geovana Peres was interviewed in the ring. "It feels dream-like. This is for us New Zealand... I'm proud to be a Kiwi now. This is ours and it will stay here... The only thing that was missing was a TKO and I have it now. I'm going to get better... I don't know what will happen next. That's for my manager now. Back to training and set some goals for next year."
