Sydney a clown to Njekanye
Fuzile’s trainer predicts title upset for his boxer
Award-winning boxing trainer Mzamo “Chief” Njekanye has dismissed as wishful thinking the announcement by his opposite number Bernie Pailman that his charge Sydney Maluleke will teach Njekanye’s boxer Azinga Fuzile a boxing lesson on Saturday.
Both boxers’ belts will be on the line in the main bout of Rumble Africa Promotions’s card at Orient Theatre. Maluleke, from Giyani, is the current IBF Africa featherweight holder, while Fuzile is the SA featherweight champion.
“I hope Bernie is not talking about Sydney the clown who was defeated by Aphiwe Mboyiya Mabhuti Sinyabi here [in East London], because if it is that one then the direct opposite will happen,” said Njekanye yesterday.
Maluleke, 33, won the SA belt with a stunning seventh-round stoppage of Sabelo Jubatha in East London in September 2012 but he lost it three months later to Mboyiya. Maluleke also lost to Sinyabi for the IBO International belt in 2015.
On paper their bout is a mismatch but Njekanye said: “We are going in there to do what we are known for and that is to expose the so-called veterans and make them look ordinary.”
Fuzile, then a novice of four fights, outclassed Sinyabi – a veteran of 33 fights – for the SA belt in September last year.
Pailman insisted that Fuzile will get a boxing lesson. and