While most of his peers continue with being fight-starved because all boxing activities have ground to halt in South Africa as a result of the court challenge brought by the National Professional Boxing Promoters (NPBPA) against Minister of Sport Zizi Kodwa’s decision to appoint and announce a new board for Boxing South Africa (BSA), Sabelo Ngebiyana is not affected by that as he has a fight in Tanzania next month.
Komani-born Ngebiyana returns to Tanzania for a fight against unbeaten Tanzanian boxer Ibrahim Mafia whose birth name is Ibrahim Mustafa Kodema on the second weekend of March.
The former South African junior-bantamweight champion and Mafia will square up against each other in a World Boxing Council (WBC) Africa bantamweight title fight on Saturday, 09 March. Ngebiyana didn’t fare well in his last visit to Tanzania as he was outpointed by Oscar Duge in Dar-Es-Salaam in December.
The 21-year-old Mafia from Makorora in Tanzania has won all his eight fights with five of those wins coming from stoppages. Mafia is the reigning Tanzanian bantamweight champion having been a junior-bantamweight titlist at one stage.
This fight against Mafia is going to give Ngebiyana an opportunity to redeem himself after he lost his last two fights to Duge and Alan Picasso Romero in Mexico City, Mexico, last year.
