By Monwabisi Jimlongo
Plans have been set in motion to make sure that Sivenathi ‘Special One’ Nontshinga finally challenges International Boxing Federation (IBF) junior-flyweight champion Felix Alvarado.
This comes in the wake of Alvarado from Nicaragua have been released from his contract by Oscar De La Hoya’s Golden Boy Promotions.
The news of Alvarado’s release by Golden Boy was confirmed by Rumble Africa Promotions (RAP) international adviser Colin ‘Nomakanjani’ Nathan.
“Alvarado has been released by Golden Boy which means that he no longer has a promoter. I have a very powerful international promoter who’s gonna do this fight,” Nathan, who is an award-winning trainer, revealed.
“I got mail from Golden Boy, which said that they had decided to release Alvarado. I will be contacting him in the next 48 hours and see if a deal can’t be reached.”
Unbeaten Nontshinga was due to have faced Alvarado in Texas, United States, last December. But the fight didn’t take place as the East London boxer couldn’t fly to America because the Joe Biden regime had imposed travel restrictions on South African travellers owing to the COVID-19 variant Omicron.
“If I don’t agree with the advisor to Alvarado on terms, the promoter is going to purse bid for me. At the moment I cannot reveal who the promoter is. Remember, we had an agreement, then there was travel restrictions,” Nathan said.
“There is a few issues, a question of where will the fight happen, when the fight will happen. I was overseas last week, I went there to have high level meetings with different people and one of the issues was the Nontshinga-Alvarado fight.”
Nontshinga, 23, earned the right to challenge Alvarado after he beat Filipino boxer Christian ‘The Bomb’ Araneta in Gqeberha last April.
Meanwhile, the 33-year-old Alvarado last fought when he scored a first round technical knockout win over Israel Vasquez from Puerto Rico in a non-title fight in August.
Before that, Alvarado successfully defended his belt after he stopped US-based South African boxer DeeJay Kriel in the 10th round in January last year.
