Cape Town boxing trainer Emil Brice has made a bold prediction that the fight between his boxer Lunga ‘Pressure Cooker’ Sitemela and Steven Bagwasi from Botswana will have an early ending.
Brice made this prediction as he together with Sitemela and Allan Dillon are preparing to leave for Botswana where his charge has a World Boxing Federation (WBF) junior-lightweight title fight date with Bagwasi at the Grand Palm in Gaborone on Friday.
“Our preparations have gone very well. I mean everything went well. Lunga is in tip-top shape. This fight won’t go the distance. Basically, we worked on everything. It’s gonna be pressure cooking all the way during the fight. After all, he’s called the Pressure Cooker. We are excited and we will bring the title to South Africa,” Brice remarked.
Brice together with Sitemela and Dillon, who manages the boxer, are scheduled to leave Cape Town for Botswana on Wednesday morning.
Sitemela will be seeking to make boxing history as he wants to become the first boxer from the small Eastern Cape town of Dordrecht to win a world title. He outdid himself when he put Dordrecht, which is in the Chris Hani District, on the boxing map after he won the South African junior-lightweight title following a 10th round stoppage of Sibusiso Zingange in May last year.
Bagwasi, who is a regarded as a superstar in Botswana, won the WBF title when he outpointed Tanzanian Said Chino at the University of Botswana Indoor Sports Centre in Gaborone last August.
On the other hand, Cape Town-based Sitemela will go to Friday’s fight on the back of a fourth round stoppage win over Khanyile Bulana during his first SA junior-lightweight title defence in November last year.
The 31-year-old Sitemela will become the fifth SA boxer to fight against Bagwasi, who has already beaten Koos Sibiya, Xolani Mgidi and the late Anthony Maloisane. Former SA lightweight champion Ayanda Nkosi is the only South African boxer to have prevailed against the 28-year-old Mahalapye-born Bagwasi.
Sitemela has an impressive record of 15 victories (nine knockouts) and a defeat while Bagwasi has eight wins (two stopages) and a loss.
