Africa Boxing Union (ABU) has rejected a proposal from Nigerian boxer Olanreweaju Duirodola following his recent victory over Malawian Mussa Ajibu in a World Boxing Organisation (WBO)-Africa cruiserweight title fight.<\/p>\n
Through an e-mail, Duirodola\u2019s promoter Roland Jankelson wrote to ABU asking for opponents.<\/p>\n
\u201cDo you have any African cruiserweights that are both available and qualified under the current \u201cstar\u201d criteria to fight Durodola. And, of course, a promoter that will support such a bout? Last time around these elements did not exist. I certainly tried hence the WBO fight in Ghana March 17. Has anything changed?\u201d Jankelson wrote.<\/p>\n
In response, ABU\u2019s Houcine Houichi, who is also WBC-Vice President, said he was disappointed that Duirodola fought against Ajibu, who was cleared by Malawi Boxing Association and not the Malawi Professional Boxing Control Board.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe WBC and ABU pushed Duirodola in the ratings to #4 [number four] and your reward to us is to play for our competitions, WBO-Africa and Aiba, through its Malawi boxing commission,\u201d Houichi said.<\/p>\n
\u201cMr Lonzoe Defector Zimba, chairman of the Malawi professional boxing, made a claim before the fight to the Ghanaian Boxing Authority but still the fight took place. I kept quiet because I didn\u00b4t like to interfere in your business. Please don\u00b4t ask me now to find a promoter for your boxer. That is your job and not mine. We are a sanctioning body and not promoter.\u201d<\/p>\n
The local board\u2019s Vice General Secretary, Mbachichi Nyirenda, said boxers should tread carefully on issues surrounding Aiba and rival camps.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe likes of Manny Pacquiao and others, including Isaac Chilemba, refused to go to the Olympics because of such issues. It might seem a simple issue here but it is not. Aiba allows its boxers to fight for rival camps such as WBC and IBF [International Boxing Federation] but that is not the case with the other bodies. So now the Nigerian might be limited in the choice of opponents,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The fight, which ended in the fifth round in favour of the Nigerian, was embroiled in controversy after the Malawi board\u2019s attempts to block Ajibu from the fight.<\/p>\n
The board tried to block Ajibu following his ties with Maba. Reports indicate that Ajibu is due to face Duirodola in a rematch in the United States of America.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Africa Boxing Union (ABU) has rejected a proposal from Nigerian boxer Olanreweaju Duirodola following his recent victory over Malawian Mussa Ajibu in a World Boxing Organisation (WBO)-Africa cruiserweight title fight. Through an e-mail, Duirodola\u2019s promoter Roland Jankelson wrote to ABU asking for opponents. \u201cDo you have any African cruiserweights that are both available and qualified […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":42684,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-43931","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43931","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43931"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43931\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43934,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43931\/revisions\/43934"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42684"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43931"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43931"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43931"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}