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PHELANDABA Clinic born Calvin Moyo, an engineering technician from Doncaster recently won his debut super welterweight professional boxing fight.
Moyo who left Bulawayo when he was a year old, started boxing just four years ago.
He has turned professional at the age of 23.
Zimbabwe-born Calvin Moyo beat Sheffield’s Paul Scaife on points over four rounds on the GBM Steel City show organised by South Yorkshire promoter Izzy Asif.
Moyo said: “The fight went well. I enjoyed everything about it starting with the media work right through to getting my hand raised for my first professional win.”
He added: “It’s all unforgettable. My dream came true. I’m a professional boxer. I’m now eager to get back in the gym to make further improvements for a better performance when I’m next out hopefully early in the New Year. “
Moyo, a former student of McAuley Catholic High School, started boxing four years ago at Wilby Carr Community Boxing Club in Cantley.
He said: “After Covid I started training with Dave Allen who’s now my manager at his home in Consibrough, known as The Patio of Dreams.
“I train twice a day in the week and once on Saturdays. I’d met Dave at the gym and asked for some advice. We developed a good relationship, and he started coaching me. Within two years I’d won 11 of 15 amateur bouts including defeating some regional champions. Joining the professional ranks provides the challenge to push myself even more.”
Moyo admires Russian boxer Dimitry Bivol. “He’s a class act. Respectful and respectable. I admire him even more after his recent fight with Beterbiev and how he carried himself afterwards. What a Spartan of a man.
“I love boxing for the discipline it installs and the thrill of pushing myself physically and mentally to breaking point. It makes me feel alive and I thrive on it. I hope that as people see how hard I work and how welcoming I am to all they will want to support me as my family do.”
Family is important to Moyo. “We’re a close family. I have a younger brother and older sister and I arrived in England aged one. My mother is my hero given all she’s done for us when the odds were against her.
“I just want to do whatever I can to make her proud, she’s worked so incredibly hard. She doesn’t like to see me box but knows that I am happiest in the ring as does my girlfriend, who is an absolute rock supporting me as I put myself through the rigours of fight camp. I’m quite a social person who likes eating out and playing football. I played regularly for Bessacarr FC growing up.”
In an interview yesterday, Moyo’s mother Sihle Dube said she is proud of her son and wishes him well in his chosen passion. She admitted that she thought the lad was stronger in football but is surprised with his fine run in boxing which compelled Allen to try him out in the professional ranks.
“I am proud of my boy. He is disciplined and focused, he works very hard and I wish him all the best in the sport,” said Dube.
It is not surprising that Moyo was born barely 600m from Iminyela Hall famed for producing boxers like Nokuthula Tshabangu, Ndumiso Mabhena, Eddie Ndlovu, Joyful Mahlangu, Majuta Mpofu and Trust Ndlovu – (doncasterfreepress.com/Sports Reporter)
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