By Monwabisi Jimlongo
One-time world title contender Siboniso Gonya is in a mission to revive his boxing career following three successive losses.
Gonya’s journey to revive his career starts with a clash against Mduduzi Mzimela in a KwaZulu-Natal junior-featherweight title fight in Mooiriver on Saturday, 28 October.
According to the 32-year-old Gonya’s trainer Sizwe Mthembu, his boxer will be out to get Mzimela’s rating. Mzimela is rated eighth in the controversial October ratings.
“This is very important fight to us. We took this fight because Mzimela is rated and we want his rating. A win will take us somewhere,” Gonya’s trainer Sizwe Mthembu said.
Hailed as being the next big thing to come from KwaZulu-Natal boxing, Gonya was stopped in his tracks when he suffered a historic 11 seconds knockout loss to Zolani Tete when he challenged for the World Boxing Organisation (WBO) bantamweight title at the SSE Arena in Belfast, Northern Ireland, in November 2017.
Mtubatuba-born Gonya has not been the same since that loss. That he only won once and lost three times since losing to Tete bears testimony to that.
“The fact that he didn’t do well in his last three fights doesn’t sit well with us. It’s bad that’s why we want to win against Mzimela,” Mthembu said.
Mzimela will go to the Gonya fight on the back of a fifth round stoppage loss to current South African junior-featherweight champion Bongani Mahlanguin April this year.
