Mvula off to Poland for WBA title bout
Duncan Village boxer Siphosethu Mvula will join a select few SA boxers to fight in Poland when he departs today for his WBA Intercontinental junior lightweight title clash.
Mvula will face Bekman Solybayev of Kazakhstan in Lublin, Poland, on Saturday in his first bout abroad.
Though there are no statistics available, few SA boxers, if any, have fought in Poland.
The former SA junior bantamweight champion was initially scheduled to face Khanyile Bulana at the end of next month, but the bout was nipped in the bud when Bulana took a title shot against reigning SA junior lightweight champion Lunga Sitemele for a fight scheduled on October 16.
Mvula is on the comeback trail since falling short of beating Tshifhiwa Munyai for the SA lightweight title.
Munyai surrendered the title to Lusanda Komanisi a fortnight ago.
After ending his 14-month hiatus, Mvula returned to the ring to beat Prince Ndlovu and will be going to the fight with valuable winning momentum.
However, he will face a relatively tough boxer in the 32-year-old Solybayev, who has suffered a single loss in 15 fights, though the Kazakh* does not possess crippling power as he has scored just five stoppages.
Solybayev is enjoying a twofight winning streak since suffering his lone loss to Ramiro Cesema in August 2021. While Mvula has lost four times and drawn once in 21 bouts, he has faced a far better opposition than the Kazakh, with his victims also including Komanisi.
But fighting in a foreign country for the first time can prove a big challenge for him, especially as he will only leave with his manager, Andile Mshumpela.
However, Mshumpela sounded confident of returning home with a win.
“Mvula has proven that he has a strong character, which will help him deal with anything thrown at him,” he said.
Mvula is scheduled to return on Sunday and Mshumpela says he will be carrying the WBA intercontinental belt with him.
● Meanwhile, Russia’s Umar Kremlev will remain president of the International Boxing Association (IBA) after its extraordinary congress on Sunday voted by a significant majority against holding a new election, leaving the sport’s Olympic future uncertain.
Dutch candidate Boris van der Vorst’s hopes of challenging Kremlev for the presidency ended after 106 delegates voted against a rerun of the election, with 36 in favour and four abstaining.
Kremlev was elected unopposed in May after Van der Vorst was declared ineligible.
The Court of Arbitration for Sport ruled in June that Van der Vorst was wrongly prevented from standing.
Sunday’s decision cast new doubt over boxing’s efforts to preserve its Olympic spot beyond 2024, after a series of warnings from the International Olympic Committee (IOC) over IBA’s governance.
“We have to get to the point where boxing will be part of the Olympic Games in 2024 as well as 2028. We will do our best,” Kremlev said.
IBA, amateur boxing’s world governing body, was stripped of involvement in last year’s Tokyo Olympics due to governance, finance, refereeing and ethical issues.
Boxing is not on the initial programme for the Los Angeles Games in 2028.
The IOC is managing the Paris 2024 competition.
The IBA suspended the Ukrainian federation on Friday, leaving it unable to cast a vote.