WBC honours Catherine

Sun, 18 Dec 2016 10:19:37 +0000

By Bennie Mundando

 THE World Boxing Council (WBC) has honoured Zambia’s female boxing icon Catherine Phiri for being the first female boxer from Africa to win the WBC bantam weight title by dethroning Yazmin Rivas on 30th January, 2016 in Mexico.

Oriental Quarries Boxing Promotion operations manager Christopher Malunga made this revelation from New York yesterday after the close of the WBC 54th convention.

Malunga said that WBC president Mauricio Sulaiman had shown a lot of interest in African boxing and that there was need for promoters to live up to the expectation of the global body.

Malunga challenged African promoters to learn from each other if they were to make an impact in the sport.

He said they could that by buying into the ideas of others and assimilating them into their own programmes if they were to produce quality boxers capable of putting the continent on the world map.

He said just as Africa was united during the convention, there was need to enhance cooperation among stables if the continent was to actualise its massive but untapped talent and make an impact on the world stage by minting trophies.

He said there was need for the African boxers to be disciplined and remain focused for them to go far in their careers.

He also advised stables across the continent to take keen interest in amateur boxing because that was the reservoir from which professional boxing got the talent.

“African boxers need to be disciplined for them to go very far. Look at the level we have reached, I was introduced to Floyd Mayweather by the WBC president WBC president Mauricio Sulaiman because of the interest he has in Africa,

“ And so my appeal to African promoters is that we must remain focused and look at the interest of Africa and make sure we go very far.

“In 2017, we are going to have a lot of fights under WBC but we also need to get involved under amateur because that is the foundation of professional boxing. I am very happy that we are living as brothers here at the convention,” Malunga said.

“I’m here to announce that WBC welterweight silver champion Charles Manyuchi will defend his title on 25th of March in Singapore against Qudratillo Abduqaxorov of Uzbekistan. The date and the fight has been approved by WBC convention,” he said.

Malunga said African boxers and promoters needed to seize the opportunity given to them by the World Boxing Council (WBC) to host a number of fights next year by ensuring that they grab as many titles as possible.