Photo: New WBF All Africa Heavyweight Champion Elvis Moyo and WBF President Howard Goldberg.
It was a real night of the underdogs on Friday November 22 at a packed Cape Sun Hotel in Cape Town, South Africa, as Zimbabwean Elvis Moyo and late replacement Themba Tshicila won World Boxing Federation (WBF) All Africa titles at Heavyweight and Super Featherweight respectively.
Having fought to a controversial draw in their original encounter last March, Moyo put all the controversy aside in this rematch and beat local favorite Osborne Machimane with a smart tactical performance, showing it was no fluke that he gave current WBF World Cruiserweight champion Danie Venter a torrid time in his last bout.
After ten rounds of boxing, judges Elroy Marshal and Rasie Erasmus scored the fight 99-91 and 98-92 for Moyo, while judge Clifford Mbelu seemed to be way off the mark with his 95-95 score.
With his fine performance going out live on television in Zimbabwe, the new WBF All Africa Heavyweight Champion improved his very deceiving professional record to 4-5-2 (1), while former South African Champion Machimane drops to 18-8-2 (13).
Themba Tshicila came in on just a few days notice, but was too clever and awkward from his southpaw stance for Cape Town-based Zimbabwean Nkululeko “Felix” Vengenayi, winning a split decision. Floored in the third round, Tshicila came back strong to put Vengenayi down in the sixth and finished the bout in full control.
Eddie Marshall and Rassie Erasmus scored the bout in favor of Tshicila by 96-92 and 95-93, while Elroy Marshall voted for Vengenayi with a 96-94 tally. Tshicila improved his record to 26-11-3 (7), Vengenayi falls to 8-4 (7).
Also on the bill, promoted by Kalakoda Promotions, was WBF All Africa Cruiserweight Champion Kevin Lerena, fighting at heavyweight against the inexperienced but tough as teak Ben Marcel from D.R.C. Lerena won on points, moving his record to 9-0 (6).
In an emotional moment, WBF President Howard Goldberg awarded an honorary WBF World title belt to former World Heavyweight Champion and South African legend Gerrie Coetzee, for his commitment and contribution to boxing. A visibly touched Coetzee received a standing ovation from the large crowd.
As in September, I once again ran out of gas in the 10th & 11th championship rounds of October & November with this column, but I recovered to complete them and will unleash a few more flurries to close out the 12th and final round.
In the first week of October, Hassan N’Dam won a UD over Curtis Stevens in an eliminator for the right to challenge Jermaine Taylor who defeated aging Sam Soliman to regain the IBF Middleweight title. How Taylor even earned this title shot is another story altogether, but it is all irrelevant as he is now the champion. However he will not have too much time to savor his victory as he has assault and battery charges pending against him and an upcoming court fight that may turn out to be the toughest fight of his life, just when things started to look up for him in boxing, we wish him luck.
