THE international boxing bill that was set for Bulawayo next month has been postponed to next year owing to the Region 5 Games. SUKOLUHLE MTHETHWA SPORTS REPORTER
Former Zimbabwe light and middleweight champion Mordecai Donga of Big Fish Boxing Promotions said they had also encountered a number of challenges in trying to organise the event.
“There has been a lot of running around by Big Fish individuals,” he said.
“The problems we faced were because of the Ebola outbreak.
“We called for some medical documents from our counterparts in Zambia, Namibia and one boxer from Kenya said they were scared.
“They were scared of traveling and they were just trying to curb or avoid the issue of contracting the Ebola virus.”
Donga said they also decided to shelve the tournament as it could be a counter attraction to the Region 5 Games starting in Bulawayo next week.
“The other reason we will not have the tournament this year is because the country is hosting the Under-20 Region 5 Youth Games in December.
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We decided to shelve our plans for this year to next year,” he said.
“We had some brushes with the boxing board.
“We were coming out hard with a lot of pressure at the beginning of the year and things looked really promising.
“However, we could not go anywhere because the boxing board was refusing to give us the licence.
“They only gave us a licence in August. This in a way complicated things.”
The stable which seeks to promote local boxers and bring international pugilists to fight with locals was launched by Donga and partners in March.
During the launch Donga said a Zambian light heavyweight pugilist Anos Temfuma will trade leather with a local boxer in the main bout of their international bill which will also have three supporting international bouts and two local fights.
The budget for the tournament was set at $35 000.
Boxing enthusiasts have been starved of action as Bulawayo last had a professional boxing tournament in 2011 at the Large City Hall.
The last professional international boxing fights were staged at the Bulawayo Polytechnic in 2006.