By Monwabisi Jimlongo
J4Joy Boxing Promotions bosses have been asked to appear before the Boxing South Africa (BSA) legal officer and explain themselves following their failure to stage a tournament in Durban on Thursday evening.
Initially, J4Joy Boxing Promotions had scheduled a tournament at the Moses Mabhida Stadium in Durban on Sunday, but ran into serious problems something which necessitated the date change to Tuesday this week.
The date was changed for the second time and the tournament was then rescheduled for Thursday. However, Thursday’s tournament saw the number of bouts being cut into half after the promoter’s failure to meet overseas boxers’ financial obligations as well as the non-payment of a sanctioning fee to the World Boxing Federation (WBF).
“I spoke to them and made it clear that we are gonna summon them to come appear before our legal officer. We had already started an investigation even before the tournament was cancelled,” acting BSA chief executive officer Erick Sithole revealed.
“We will determine the extent of the damage and then decide if we institute disciplinary proceedings against them or not. Everything they did was done in the name of boxing, which has been brought into disrepute. We need to interrogate that. There has to be consequence management and they are aware of that.”
Sithole added that throughout the day on Thursday there were no signs that the much-publicised tournament won’t go ahead.
“On Thursday around 11 or 12 we knew that the tournament was going ahead. It was only around 6pm that it dawned on us that the tournament was gonna have only three bouts as the international boxers were pulling out because certain obligations were not met,” Sithole added.
“They had agreed on certain deadlines, which were not met. There were agreements that were not fulfilled. The overseas boxers then pulled out of their fights. We couldn’t carry on with the tournament because it didn’t have the minimum requirement of rounds.”
The three bouts that were going to take place were the KwaZulu-Natal junior-welterweight title fight between Lindokuhle Dlamini and Ntethelelo Nkosi as well as the South African junior-welterweight bout where reigning champion Prince Dlomo was going to defend his crown against Marcus Lebogo.
The vacant World Boxing Association (WBA) Pan-African bantamweight title fight between Rofhiwa Nemushungwa and Fillipus Shaanika from Namibia was also slated to take place.
However, the vacant International Boxing Organisation (IBO) Intercontinental lightweight title fight between Azinga ‘Golden Boy’ Fuzile and Mexican Rene Tellez Giron, Mapule Ngubane’s World Boxing Organisation (WBO) International female middleweight fight against American boxer Maricela Cornejo as well as the WBF bantamweight bout between Ronald Malindi and Jorge Luis Orozco Mendoza from Mexico had already been scrapped from the bill.
Meanwhile, Sithole has revealed that all South African boxers who were due to fight in the tournament are going to get their purses.
“There is no problem with all South African boxers’ purses. The promoter and the overseas boxers have agreed that their purses will be sorted on Tuesday next week. They also agreed that the purses would be sorted on Friday next week if they are not paid on Tuesday,” Sithole concluded.
