Chronicle Editor
Tadious Manyepo, Harare Bureau
ZIMBABWE’s female boxing poster girl, Monalisa Sibanda, has activated internal mechanisms for her stable, Dynamite Girls Sports Trust, to promote her Women’s International Boxing Organisation junior welterweight continental title defence.
Sibanda will fight challenger, Happy Dauda, on a date still to be advised.
She won the crown in Nairobi, Kenya, on April 27 2019, via a unanimous judges’ decision, over Kenyan Joyce Awino.
And she has to defend the belt before the end of April this year or risk losing it.
Though Clyde Musonda’s Delta Force Promotions have flighted adverts to the effect that they will be promoting this fight, Sibanda yesterday said she is yet to be approached by that stable.
Instead, she is pushing to get sponsors for Dynamite Girls Sports Trust to promote the much-anticipated bout.
“What is very important to me, at the end of the day, is having a chance to defend my title,” she said.
”Any willing promoter who can slot our fight in is welcome. At the moment, we are yet to sign any contract with anyone.
“If Delta Force Promotions are willing to promote our fight, they will have to talk to us and we don’t have any problems with them.
”We have always worked well with everyone in the industry but at the moment we are yet to sign any contract with anyone.
“So, we are also working on our own, as Dynamite Girls Sports Trust, to see whether we can promote the fight on our own. We have already activated systems within our club to promote the fight.
“We are looking for sponsors who can partner us so that I am able to defend my title. We are running behind schedule. The opponent is there already and she must be preparing well.”
Already, Sibanda has to deal with her own condition ahead of the fight as she hasn’t had any competitive bout since that impressive showing in Kenya 10 months ago.
She has commenced preparations for the showdown with Dauda under the mentorship of her trusted Zimbabwe-born Mozambican coach Tom Ferinando.
The boxer will then take her preparations to South Africa for, at least, two weeks before coming back home for the fight.
“I have since started preparing for the fight. Physically, I am not up there since I haven’t had any serious fight since my last bout with Awino in Kenya.
“I have been doing gym work and I am now back in the ring. So far, so good. I will go to South Africa where I will have some ideal sparring partners.
“After that, I will be ready to rumble. I promise to retain the title for Zimbabwe.”
It will be Sibanda’s first time to have a title fight in her country as she has always fought outside Zimbabwe when it comes to title bouts.
Online Reporter