adminFORMER national middleweight boxing champion Gilbert “Giro” Josamu may have died about 14 years ago, but his legacy in the ring lives on after some of his protégés established a boxing academy in Mbare.
Josamu, who died on June 23, 2001, is one of the few sports personalities from Zimbabwe to publicly declare that they were HIV-positive.
The late Josamu is credited for grooming some of the talented boxers to hail from Mbare, like former Commonwealth flyweight champion Zvenyika Arifonso, Misheck Kondwani and Farai Master Kachigwada. The controversial Arifonso was the first to form a boxing club when he came up with the Mosquito Boxing Stable two-years-ago and now Kondwani has joined that bandwagon after he formed MPFF Boxing Club.
“We have formed MPFF Boxing Club and we are based at Stodart Hall in Mbare. We share the facilities with Zvenyika and hope to compliment his efforts to develop boxing in the area.
“The name of our boxing stable comes from our initials which are Misheck Kondwani, Patrick Master Kachigwada, Farai Master Kachigwada and Fellow Neusinga.
“During our prime time as boxers we all worked under Josamu, who was our trainer,” said Kondwani.
Last month MPFF took three of their boxers for a tournament in Chegutu, where Kondwani believes their pugilists fared well.
“It’s a new stable and we now have 10 boxers at our club. The boxers are all still amateurs, but we are hoping to get a few turning pro before the end of the year,” said Kondwani.
In their set up at MPFF, Kondwani and Farai do most of the training, while Patrick does the management, with Neusinga being the spokesperson.
“We all train the boxers, but have different roles within the set up and Patrick should be getting the manager’s licence soon. I have my son Recardo among the boxers and also Farai’s son Stalin.
So, when training I mostly work with Stalin, while Farai takes charge of my boy. Neusinga worked closely with Josamu and was in Giro’s corner during the tours to Australia.
“Unfortunately, he could not go far with boxing after he developed a problem with his eye sight, but now he make use of lenses,” said Kondwani.
The other boxers at the new stable are Tinashe Mwadziwana, Blessing Kachigwada, Brighton Kachigwada, Brighton Kachigwada, Kelvin Bako, Basten Mateo, Nyasha Nyatsvimbo, Tendai Manyisa and heavyweight Kelvin Bako. Among the boxers in their camp, Kondwani picks 28-year-old Bako as one of the brightest prospects.
“Bako is one of the few fighters in the heavyweight category. It’s difficult to get heavyweight boxers and he should be a professional boxer before the end of the year.
“Our biggest problem in Zimbabwe at the moment is with our board which is doing little to make sure that we have fights and keep the sport alive.” — Sportszone.
Online Reporter