Malawi\u2019s celebrated light heavyweight boxer, Isaac Chilemba, has stepped up training in South Africa ahead of his 12-round fight against Blake Caparello on March 16 in Australia.
\nThe South Africa-based pugilist said it would be tough fighting the Australian in the World Boxing Council (WBC) international fight scheduled for Melbourne Pavilion.
\nChilemba, 30, has been out of action since November 16 2016 when he broke his arm in a fight against Ukranian Oleksandr Gvozdyk, and is winless in three consecutive bouts.
\n\u201cAs a come-back fight after a year off and recovery from such a large surgery, and to get not just an easy comeback fight but, a title fight against one of the top light heavyweights, is big for me right now,\u201d he said.
\n\u201cI will need to perform just like before the injury and the lay off. So, I will have to work harder than ever. He is ranked number nine and I am 13th in the WBC rankings.\u201d
\nBoth boxers know each other well as Chilemba, recently helped Caparello (25 wins, two losses and one draw) with sparring ahead of his recent bout.
\nBut the Blantyre-born Chilemba (185 metres) is unfazed by his 31-year-old opponent, who is a southpaw and stands at 1.88 metres.
\n\u201cI think they took the fight banking on my arm, that I will have one arm working as in sparring I used to complain a lot about how sore I was. But this was just a mind-game.
\n\u201cI knew that they might eventually challenge me, which is exactly what has happened,\u201d he said.
\nChilemba, the former World Boxing Federation, International Boxing Federation and World Boxing Organisation international champion has, in the professional ranks, won 24 bouts, lost five times and drawn twice.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Malawi\u2019s celebrated light heavyweight boxer, Isaac Chilemba, has stepped up training in South Africa ahead of his 12-round fight against Blake Caparello on March 16 in Australia. The South Africa-based pugilist said it would be tough fighting the Australian in the World Boxing Council (WBC) international fight scheduled for Melbourne Pavilion. Chilemba, 30, has been […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":58295,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-58291","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\/58291","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=58291"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58291\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58296,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58291\/revisions\/58296"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58295"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58291"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58291"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58291"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}