Enter ‘The Busy Bee’

Charles Mabika Special Correspondent

It’S now over three decades on and Zimbabwe’s WBC silver welterweight champion, Charles Manyuchi has a big chance to reignite the flickering flame of a boxing wilderness that exploded into a towering inferno of a following after the late icon, Proud “Kilimanjaro” Chinembiri, stopped defending African Boxing Union’s heavyweight king, Adamah Mensah of Ghana, with a sixth round TKO before a delirious 30 000 crowd at Rufaro on a windy night back in 1981.

Never before had a boxing bout attracted such a huge turnout in the country and that night’s outcome would herald a “Pied Piper” following for “Kili” and thrust the sport into a neck-and-neck local popularity contest with football.

Manyuchi has a fine opportunity to achieve the same floodgates opening when he takes on Colombian artist, Jose Augustin Feria, in a non-title fight tomorrow night in the capital.

Not only did “Kilimanjaro”, also known as “The Man Mountain” — a self-anointed pugilist with a yearn for the knockout punch — popularise the sport to dizzy heights, but he also posted some emphatic victories over world-rated opponents, who had oozed confidence after landing in the country to face him.

A gigantic American fighter called Mark “White Lightning” Lee then ranked 10th by the International Boxing Federation (IBF) was demolished in eight rounds by the Zimbabwean champion, 12 months after he had wrestled Mensah’s crown, again before a bumper crowd at Rufaro.

Ugandan Big Joe Kalulu, then rated in Africa’s Top 10, also tasted the wrath of the Man Mountain’s fury and many more would succumb, during a glittering career that almost earned Chinembiri a world title crack at then WBC and IBF, champion Lennox Lewis.

It would be folly though not to mention some of the pugilists who made this sport so glamorous and a “must-see” pastime whenever the likes of promoters like Paul “Mangirosa” Murinye (late), Stalin Mau Mau, Dave Wellings and Philip “Captain Fiasco” Chiyangwa brought the “big boys” from all over the world for matches against our local boxers.

Top of that boxing array of talent was the irrepressible lightweight legend, Langton “Schoolboy” Tinago (undoubtedly the finest boxer ever produced in the country), Solomon “Dhuri” Chida (late), Mohamed “Tar Baby” Alfonso (late), Ringo Starr, Cranos “The Dancing Master” Zuma (late), Stix Macloud (late), Jiwa Margarine (late), Joseph “Kid Power” Mutamisi (late), Ambrose “Go Man Go” Mlilo, Hisman “Flash” Chisango, Gilbert “Giro” Josamu (late), Duke “The Dude” Chinyadza and Arigoma “Master Blaster” Chiponda and most recently, Zvenyika “Mosquito” Arifonso (not Alfonso Zvenyika, as mostly and erroneously referred to) who endeared this sport to many locals.

Can “The Busy Bee” sting his way past Feria and lure thousands of old and new “clients” to his corner after tomorrow night’s event?

Long-time boxing follower and an admirer of the crafty skills and workmanship of former featherweight champion Zuma, Funny “SB” Mushava, believes Manyuchi has the guile and charisma to do it, but he warns: “Don’t under-estimate Feria.”

Mushava said: “The South Americans have a good record in Africa and Manyuchi should be well on guard and not be complacent. This has to be a big night for ‘The Busy Bee’ so that he can convert all doubting Thomases and prophets of doom who might want us to believe that he is a ‘fly-by-night’ operator.

“I watched former local lightweight kings Aaron “Tap Tap” Ncube and middleweight supremo Ambrose Mlilo demolish two highly fancied South Americans two decades ago here, but after some tricky starts.

“Their secret to success is that they had prepared thoroughly for those fights. However, I also believe Manyuchi has done the same and hope that his corner will not be complacent on the night,” said Mushava.

Like Punish Chinembiri — “Kilimanjaro’s” elder brother and former trainer would always shout from his corner: “Rova bharanzi iro Kili . . . hapana anotidhaya tiri munyika medu!” (knock that pretender out Kili . . . no one is better that us Zimbabweans) — that same message could be delivered to Manyuchi by his handlers who will also be eager for their fighter to rekindle the poignant and colourful following in a sport which has been forced into the shadows of other sporting disciplines in the country.