Tete is set on facing Irish Tiger in unification challenge
THE country’s lone major world title holder Zolani Tete has congratulated Irish boxer Ryan Burnett for winning the IBF world bantamweight title last weekend.
Tete, who holds the WBO crown in the same division, is hoping the Irishman will risk his title in a unification and all-British clash. This is because Tete is promoted in England by Frank Warren of Queensberry Promotions.
While he had been coaxing Lee Haskins to come on board before he became the world champion, he is hoping Burnett, the “Irish Toger”, will not develop cold feet to risk his title.
“I am happy with the Burnett win and I think he did an exceptional job of dethroning Haskins the way he did. It is great when all these titles are in Britain because we can engage in a nice round-robin of champions,” said Tete.
The Bernett-Haskins outcome was mired in controversy after one judge mistook the fighters and scored the fight in favour of the former champion by a wide margin, only to discover later he had the wrong fighter winning.
Tete, who won his own world title in Leicester when he easily outpointed Filipino Arthur Villanueva, is now on the voluntary defence window while the WBO is still sorting mandatory challenger.
While he would have loved to accommodate a Burnett unification, he understands the Irishman is still enjoying his newly won crown and will probably want to cash in on it.
“It is such a feeling to be a world champion so I know Ryan is still enjoying the moment. So I will let him enjoy it. When he is ready we can risk our titles down the line.”
Tete is not new to winning major world titles as he has already won the junior-bantamweight version of Burnett’s crown but vacated it when he was not happy with the terms of his mandatory defence against Puerto Rican McJoe Arroyo. The latter ended up fighting for the vacant crown, beating Villanueva before losing it to another Filipino, Jerwin Ancajas.
“I have been there, done that so it’s nothing new to me, hence I do not mind moving straight to a unification if other champions are ready,” said Tete.
Other champions in the division are Japanese Shinsuke Yamanaka, who will risk his WBC crown against Luis Nery in Japan on August 15 as well as WBA champ Zhanat Zhakiyanov, whose camp is not really seeing eyeto-eye with Tete’s. out his