Manyuchi’s Hell on earth
a nearby camp house where visitors are restricted.
His normal day begins at 4:30am with a 15km roadrun. The first 10km are slogged through while wearing a 25kg weight vest.
“This helps in loosening his (Manyuchi) muscles,” his trainer Mike “Weaver” Zulu says.
The Sunday Mail Sport caught up with Manyuchi just after his morning shift, and he did not mince words about his “ordeal.”
“Kunoku kunofa munhu akoma (Here it is all hard work) … boxing is not easy as most people think. You spend months training for a match that sometimes lasts not longer than five minutes. However, I have come to realise that success does not come cheap,” says Manyuchi.
Between 1:30pm and 3pm assistant trainer Greeting Kaunga takes over.
He takes Manyuchi through some offensive and defensive drills which are punctuated by time on the treadmill; while serious minutes are also spent with a skipping rope. The pace is devilish. Manyuchi rests for two hours before returning to the gym at 5pm where his new physical trainer, Kim Grittings, will be on duty to work on his muscles and resilience. Sparring sessions are part of this session, with Zulu himself conducting the orchestra.
Oriental Quarries has gone scientific and Manyuchi visits a physician once a week and will soon engage a psychologist as the March 25 bout against Abduqaxorov beckons.
His diet is strictly monitored and the food he eats is weighed before intake to control the boxer’s weight, which has commendably fallen from a bulky 79kg to just under 70 in three weeks.
The weight limit for the welterweight division is 66,8kg.
As Manyuchi rises on the boxing ladder, his manager Chris Malunga wants to align the pugilist’s training regime with his newfound status and to that end, a US$400 000 “world class” gym is under construction about 100m from the present facility.
“It is not easy to produce world boxing champions; a lot of money is required just as much as you also need proper human resources. Everything has to be spot on, we pay attention to detail because we are a serious boxing promotion company,” says Malunga.
According to Malunga, Oriental Quarries have now invested close to US$1 million towards development, upkeep and promotion of Manyuchi, who is now regarded as one of the top welterweight practitioners of the sweet science in the world.
As the day comes to an end, a bushed Manyuchi retires to a camp house a few kilometers from the gym. At this time of day, it is not easy to hold a conversation with the boxer.
Seated like a zombie on a stool after a grueling training session on Wednesday, Manyuchi looks dazed. He asks this writer to talk to him early the next day because he simply cannot engage anyone at the moment.
“He gets into this state at the end of a grueling day and that is why we have a camp house where he can retire and get enough sleep without interference,” explains Malunga.