Kudakwache, Mwando stripped of titles
Boxers Kudakwache Nkhakamira Banda and Brian Mwando have been stripped of their Malawi Professional Boxing Control Board (MPBCB) belts after losing non-title bouts through knockouts.
Making the declaration in an interview yesterday, MPBCB president Lonzoe Zimba said the World Boxing Council (WBC) rules which the board follows, a belt holder who loses any fight through knockout loses the title.
“The set six months the two boxers were supposed to hold on to the belts have not expired, but because they lost through knockouts then they don’t deserve to be champions,” he said.
Mwando, who retained the national middleweight title after defeating Charles Misanjo, was knocked out in round four by Felix Mwamaso in July in a non-title fight.
Kudakwache won the super welterweight title after defeating Chikondi Makawa in June. However, he could not stand Limbani Masamba’s rain of blows before he was knocked out in the final round of the non-title fight on Sunday.
Meanwhile, Zimba has said that the board has assigned its marketing director Chiku Kalilombe to collect the belts from the two boxers so that challengers can vie for them.
“Promoters that want to organise fights for the vacant titles can apply now,” Zimba said.
However, Mwando yesterday said that he is not ready to surrender the belt until MPBCB shows him the rules governing the belts.
“The board must show us its own rules and not the WBC ones. These titles are not organised by the WBC so it does not make sense to apply its rules to our boxing,” he queried.
In the meantime, the MPBCB has also declared the lightweight belt as vacant after Chripin Moliati failed to defend it within six months.
The board’s president said the advantage for Moliati is that he will be the first contender.
“Unlike Mwando and Kudakwache’s cases in which they will start challenging for the belts as ordinary boxers, Moliati will be treated as a defending champion. The reason, according to the rules, is that he did not break any rules,” he said.
