Heavyweight boxing on the canvas

Langton Nyakwenda

THREE years ago, Anesu Motsi was touted as the new Kilimanjaro after he burst onto the local amateur boxing scene with a heavy body and looks resembling Zimbabwe’s greatest ever heavyweight boxer Proud “Kilimanjaro” Chinembiri.

But the Rusape-based amateur boxer, who weighs 115kg and is 198cm tall, is yet to realise his full potential because of local circumstances.

Heavyweight boxing in Zimbabwe is on the canvas and in dire need of resuscitation as the number of boxers in this category keeps dwindling.

The country is struggling to produce another Kilimanjaro.

The late Chinembiri was nicknamed Kilimanjaro, thanks to his huge body, rising from Harare’s Mbare suburb to become an African heavyweight champion in the 1980s.

He almost fought against former world heavyweight champion Lennox Lewis in the early 1990s, before he succumbed to illness in 1994.

For many, Chinembiri’s death signalled the demise of heavyweight boxing in the country. Since his death, Zimbabwe has never had an international heavyweight boxing champion.

“It’s now difficult to find good heavyweight boxers,” reckons veteran boxing promoter Stalin Mau Mau.

The country has four professional heavyweight boxers, namely Vincent Muziri, Collin Nyamambishi, Simon Madanhire and Itai Mutsvairo.

But fights in this category are few and far between.

Surprisingly, there was a time when Zimbabwe used to boast scores of talented heavyweight boxers like Arigoma Chiponda, John “Bonyongo The Destroyer” Mutema, Kid Power and Anderson Saizi.

Juke Box Time Bomb, Black Tiger, Walter “Ringo” Star and Hisman “Flash” Chisango are some of the former heavyweights who did business in the 1980s and 1990s.

“In a country like Zimbabwe where you have three or four heavyweight boxers, it is difficult because a boxer can’t keep fighting the same people every time,” said Mau Mau.

“Finding opponents locally is difficult. So, if you are to build a heavyweight, you build him by importing opponents, because he won’t have local opponents. I also have a boxer who has been trying to find an opponent for the past four years.”

The 32-year-old Motsi has also been struggling to find opponents locally, the reason he is yet to turn professional.

Last month, he won a silver medal at the Nelson Mandela African Boxing Cup in Durban.

“I am happy to have won silver in South Africa; it’s good for my profile, but I feel I now need to turn professional,” Motsi told The Sunday Mail Sport. “The thing is, I am not getting any younger, so I think it’s high time I take another step higher. But I must say the Mandela Boxing Cup was an eye-opener. There are a lot of things I learned from there which I think I will implement as I move up the ladder.”

Motsi has been working with national team coach Alexander Kwangwari, who also trains several amateur boxers ahead of international assignments.

And Mau Mau is convinced a proper scouting exercise could unearth more heavyweight boxers.

“The only way we can improve the situation is by seriously scouting for heavyweights across the country,” he said. “I mean those who are good or show real potential. We train them and build them by giving them fights. A heavyweight can have four or five fights at amateur level and then turn professional, because they are few.”

Delta Force Boxing Academy director and trainer Clyde Musonda believes heavyweight boxing has the potential of igniting more interest in the sport.

“Yes, we have very few (heavyweight boxers). It’s not only in Zimbabwe, but in Africa as a whole,” said Musonda. “Yet all the money is in heavyweight boxing.”

World Boxing Council champion Tyson Fury of the United Kingdom will get in excess of US$100 million for the unification fight against WBA, IBF and WBO champion Oleksandr Usyk of Ukraine in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on May 18.

To buttress Musonda’s assertion that heavyweight boxing is on a low across Africa, there are only two boxers from the continent, with dual citizenship, in the top 20 of the WBC rankings.

Efe Ajagba of Nigeria and the United States is ranked fourth, while Martin Bakole of Congo/Great Britain is ranked 10th.