Horn v Zerafa “The Battle of Bendigo” is due to enter a rematch as Jeff Horn is exercising his rematch clause.
After Horn took his worst beating of his career as Zerafa easily dismantled the former WBO Oriental and WBA Oceania Middleweight champ in less than nine rounds, Horn is looking for redemption.
“I’m hungry for the win on this one. I hate losing. I really feel like I can do better than I did last time, and I’m willing to prove it,” he said.
“Retiring was definitely something I was considering,’’ Horn added. “But I need to clean this slate.
“I thought to myself and imagined myself in five years time and thought I need to get this back. I can’t go out like this.
“The family were probably more on the way of, ‘don’t take the rematch; you should be happy with what you’ve done, take another fight’. But I needed to have this fight, and I think this fight is the one that motivates me to get back in there.” told APP.
REMATCH!
Jeff Horn will take on Michael Zerafa in a rematch of the Battle of Bendigo bout, which Zerafa comfortably won by TKO in the ninth round. pic.twitter.com/2QKD6Wum9P
— ESPN Australia & NZ (@ESPNAusNZ) October 3, 2019
Horn is looking to have his rematch in his comfort zone of his hometown of Brisbane.
Zerafa’s took to Twitter to show their distaste to the invoking of the rematch clause.
Michael Rennie
@mf_rennie
Michael Zerafa camp not happy with rematch. They were chasing big pay day in Japan.
@abcgrandstand
Zerafa believes that this rematch will get in the way of him chasing of a million dollar fight with WBA middleweight champ Ryoto Murata. Zerafa is taking it personally.
“Now it’s just become personal, because he stopped me from making more money with better fights,” Zerafa told Sporting News website.
“Now it’s his funeral.
“It’s just made me hate Jeff Horn. Now I see his true colours. I will end Jeff Horn’s career this time.”
Horn admits he is taking this fight more seriously.
“I was a little bit guilty of cutting corners (at training) the last time, little things that made me mentally underestimate Zerafa,” he said. “(But) it was embarrassing (August loss). I definitely didn’t fight the way I normally do.
"I really feel like I can do better than I did last time, and I'm willing to prove it."@jeffhornboxer feels that he can improve the result after exercising his rematch clause with Michael Zerafa.#ozboxing #boxing | 🎥 MAIN EVENT pic.twitter.com/RLalX8BlV7
— Aus-Boxing.com (@ausboxing) October 4, 2019
“Now I have a hunger … to get that win back and a world title after that would be great.”
The re-match’s date and venue are yet to be determined.
Horn hoped to fight at super welterweight but said he would still be confident if Zerafa insisted on staying at middleweight.
Similar to the Joshua v Ruiz upset where Andy Ruiz knocked out WBA, IBF, IBO and WBO Heavyweight champ Anthony Joshua in the biggest upset of the year, a massive rematch with happen before year’s end.
Horn v Zerafa 2 maybe the same.