Blame game on boxers form

The recent poor performance of the country’s boxers in international bouts has raised people’s eyebrows at the standards of the sport.

Last week, two Malawian boxers lost miserably in international fights in Namibia.

Simeon Tcheta lost in the first round loss to a Namibian opponent Lucas Ndafoloma in a WBO Africa middleweight bout and he has been threatened with a life ban for alleged fixing.

His compatriot Charles Misanjo also lost to another  Namibian Alfeus Shilong.

Out of 28 international bouts organised between 2018 and 2021, Malawi registered three wins only through Anisha Bashir’s Commonwealth lightweight over Samantha Smith, Hannock Phiri’s  World Professional Boxing Association’s lightweight win over Zambian Hillary Kataya and former world champion Isaac Golden Chilemba’s beating of Russian Alexander Kubish in a non-title fight.

South Africa-based Malawian boxing trainer Andson Kazembe attributed the situation to poor coaching.

He said: “Coaching is a big problem in Malawi as very few people take up boxing coaching and work to improve themselves towards becoming serious coaches.

“Boxers tend to train themselves or take their buddies when preparing for fights as they are not willing to pay the trainers a percentage.”

 Kazembe, who is credited for grooming great boxers, including Chilemba, said poor package also distracts potential individuals to become coaches.

 “The remuneration is also not good enough and it is a cause for concern,” the former national amateur boxing coach, said.

 In an interview, Kazembe’s former boxer and assistant coach Andy Muyaya, confirmed that he dumped coaching to establish a fitness gym in Blantyre.

“I established my gym just because I want to survive. I have a family to take care of and I cannot survive working on as a part-time coach for the national team.

Chilemba also attributed the poor performance of boxers to lack of skills.

He said: “Fighters and trainers pay attention to physical training; hard sparring, heavy conditioning without calculations which is important, but over there [overseas] they spend hours perfecting the skills. “They look at the opponent’s previous fights and point out the weaknesses and strengths, and then work on them every day until it becomes a natural thing for the fighter to react to it. Therefore, when the fight begins, the fighter is sharp and know what to throw and what not, how and which way to move and not to.”

Chilemba added: ”It’s not about just train, get fit, do sparring. As much as that’s very important, but then when doing all of that conditioning, bag work, sparring, we work around what will be done in the fight coming up.”

However, Malawi Professional Boxing Board of Control vice-president Frank Chibisa faulted lack of good facilities.

He said: “I don’t think it’s just about training. There are many problems that boxers face such as lack of boxing facilities. Our boxers use rings for amateur boxing which is 8 metres by 8 metres and when they fight abroad they find it difficult to adjust to standard professional boxing rings of 6 metres by 6 metres.

“They also don’t have managers to take care of their needs such as good diet.”

On his part, boxing promoter Stevie Mawenzi Msiska said most boxers use short cuts to secure  international bouts.