In its infancy, the showdown faced threats of a boycott from top names
The bi-weekly championship is a brainchild of Uganda Boxing Federation’s President Moses Muhangi late last year, and was climaxed on Monday -Boxing day- at the Akamwesi grounds, with show-downs in the final round – week 29-.
The finals saw a number of pulgists take on each other in the different weights after a series of action in the initial stages being held at Lugogo since December last year.
On the fateful night that had 17 boxing and three kick-boxing matches, Bwire Frank won 5:0 unanimous against Kakembo Elijah in a curtain raiser youth 86kgs, before Isaac Mando Ssenyange’s contested win over Muzamir Ssemudu took stage.
Sensational puncher Matovu Ukasha could be on his way to finding a comfortable stance in the Ugandan boxing space following a 4-1 split win against nemesis Owen Kibira of Kyengera Boxing Club, who he drew against, early in February.
Owen is only a fraction of Matovu’s victims in the inaugural edition of the boxing champions league, with Sande Simon and Burundi’s Rally Irakoze partaking some of the 5:0 defeats from the 67 kgs champion.
Moses Muhangi acknowledges how far the championship has come and some of the challenges the organizers have faced a long the way.
“…the fans turned out in big numbers and history has been set that 26th December will be the Boxing Champions League Finals. We had good weather and the fights went on well except for a few disagreements with the judges on some fights.” Muhangi said.
Reference is made to the chaos that erupted minutes after Zebra Mando Ssenyange Junior was announced winner against Muzamir Ssemudu, a ruling that the fans felt was unjustifiable.
“…to solve the disagreements, we should introduce computer systems to aid in the viewing of the bouts to eliminate judge errors.” He advised.
“We shall be launching investigation on the judges who officiated Omondi Marvin’s fight and Zebra Ssenyange’s fight, to establish reasons to their contested judgements. The journey is not as smooth as we want it to be, but we shall go on improving bit by bit.” Muhangi assured.
In its infancy, the showdown faced threats of a boycott from top names like Shadir Musa Bwogi, and David Ssemujju, who declined to sign and this left the organizers with nothing but raw talent to build on.
Even so, the resilience amongst the organizers -Top Boy Promotions and Uganda Boxing Federation – has seen them put up an admirable image of the Uganda Boxing Champions League that reached it summit with a record breaking fight between Moses Golola “of Uganda” and General Fungu aka Hamza Keeya.
Bronze medalist Kyobe Jonah beat Derrick Mubiru in the Featherweight, Marvin Omondi lost to Patrick Kasozi in another contested decision of the Bantamweight, as Mugambe Shakur won 5:0 unanimous against Sadam Muhammad in the Junior 60kgs.
Bala Geko lost by split 4:1 to Kemis Ibrahim in the youth 54kgs, as Nabikolo Fatuma won 4:1 against Mukisa Jema in the ladies’ 57kgs Youth.
In the biggest fight of the championship Zebra Mando won on split points against Muzamir Ssemudu, and in the most anticipated fight of the night, Golola Moses “Of Uganda” beat Hamza “General Fungu” Keeya by split decision 2:1, to highlight week 29 of the Uganda Boxing Champions League.
It was a great night.
True sportsmanship was exhibited.
It was a great reminder that boxing as a sport will go down in the books of history as the greatest in Uganda.
We have to appreciate the shortcomings because every new innovation to make the sport better is in its pilot stages.I commend President Moses Muhangi for recognising that we need a computerised system to verify results because as humans we can always error.VAR has helped football to sort the human errors and keep the fans satisfied.
It is bad publicity and a buzz killer for the fans to think there is favoritism for certain pulgists and also we need more female participation.
We need to groom female boxers for main fights.
Otherwise Uganda Boxing Federation is a niche in Ugandan sport and will do great exploits.