Who Tete meets still up in air

THE identity of Zolani Tete’s opponent in the vaunted World Boxing Super Series (WBSS) may be known as early as July 20.

While his team declined to confirm or deny anything, reports abroad suggest that the draw for the series is tentatively set for next month.

Tete, who rules as the WBO king, will be seeded together with other champions in the series such as IBF ruler Emmanuel Rodriguez, WBA monarch Ryan Burnett and newly-minted WBA regular champion Naoya Inoue.

Comosa, founders of the WBSS, are yet to reveal the names of four other boxers to compete in the bantamweight division. Instead Comosa’s chief boxing officer, Kalle Sauerland revealed the Season II of the series which kicked off in the cruiserweight and supermiddleweight divisions last year, will also see the involvement of the junior-welterweight class.

“Super-lightweight [juniorwelterweight] is without a doubt one of the most actionpacked weight divisions in boxing and we have a sensational lineup to be announced,” Sauerland was quoted as saying.

Other divisions will reportedly be announced for the Season II.

According to the WBSS website further details on Season II, the 2018-2019 season of the WBSS will be announced in the coming days and weeks.

However it has already been whispered that the draw for the bantamweight division will be conducted on July 20.

“Nothing officially has come to us so we cannot confirm nor deny anything,” said the boxer’s manager Mla Tengimfene.

Indeed Comosa has taken all the official and media announcements regarding the developments in the WBSS even though the participants have their own promoters.

Since Tete entered the series, his English promoter Frank Warren has even stopped revealing information about him.

While the WBSS has been warmly welcomed in the entire boxing fraternity, it has encountered some hiccups with the finals of the cruiserweight and super-middleweight yet to be contested. In the cruiserweight Ukrainian Oleksandr Uysk will face Russian Murat Gassiev with all the four major world titles – WBC, WBA, IBF and WBO – all on the line to crown an undisputed king.

The fight was originally scheduled to be held in Saudi Arabia but Uysk reportedly suffered an injury forcing a postponement with the change of venue to Russia. No date has been confirmed as yet.

It is the similar situation in the super-middleweight where George Groves also suffered an injury in his winning fight over Chris Eubank Jnr delaying the final against Callum Smith.

Groves have only announced that he had healed but the date has not been officially announced as yet. The final of the bantamweight division is slated to be contested in May or June next year. —