Jenkins Alumona
A few decades ago, boxing was the most popular sport in Nigeria with several boxers making their mark internationally with the likes of Hogan Bassey, Dick Tiger, Bash Ali and a host of others.
The sport has virtually gone extinct especially in the 21st century, until corporate bodies began to revive the combat sport with sponsorship of boxing events.
In this interview with Babajide Orevba ofNaij.com Sports, the managing director of Flykite promotions, Jenkins Alumona, disclosed that the glorious days of boxing have returned, adding that new boxer will emerge from Nigeria to shock the world.
Excerpts:
Sir, Nigeria’s most famous sport Boxing is almost going extinct at a point, but you, alongside the Nigeria Boxing Board of Control (NBB of C) have brought it back in the shape of GOtv Boxing Night, what’s the motive?
We are only promoting the sport in the country with GOtv as the sponsor. The aspiration is that a lot more brands may get involved also.
We chose boxing because it is a sport that many Nigerians can relate with, as it cuts across the country; it is a simple sport which everyone can easily get involved with.
Nigeria has also done great things in the sport, you can remember great Nigerian sports men with the likes of Dick Tiger, Hogan Bassey who were great boxers and became world champions even when Nigeria was not recognised for any other sport.
Jenkins Alumona
In fact before Nigerian became a great footballing nation, boxing was the main sport.
If you go around Lagos, there are probably as many boxing clubs as other sports aside football. There are boxing clubs in every state of the nation.
So, it is a popular sport.
We heard of NexGen Search, what is it all about?
This is a platform where we will try to discover the boxers of the future. As you have said in your first question, this is a sport that has gone really down and the task of reviving and giving it a new life is not going to be a ‘sprint’ or ‘marathon’; we need new boxers and that is what it is all about. We need to encourage the new ones to become superstars.
Will any of the graduands feature at the next boxing night?
With the ambition we have, we hope we would find one or two of them who will match the standard of the GOtv Boxing Night and why not, the individual will feature.
Alumona (r) takes Sadiq ‘Police Machine’ Ahmed to dignitaries at GOtv Boxing Night V. Photo: Emmanuel Osodi
You know, Nigerian boxing had been in the doldrums for pretty long time and many of our boxers had become old, retired and even rusty, so we need a new generation of boxers. That is what NexGen is all about.
Sir, GOtv Boxing Night VI will come up on March 25 (Good Friday), Do you think it would be bigger than the fifth edition which is still adjudged the best boxing show in the history of Nigeria, where the best boxer of the Night won N1.5million?
What we do here at Flykites is plan, plan and plan again. I don’t know how it would be but I certainly hope it would be excellent. Our aspiration has always been that the next should be better than the previous. Whether it is, or it is not, it depends on a lot of factors but we hope it would be better.
That’s why we had to put it on Good Friday and thank God, there had been no negative incident since inception and thanks to good organisation and security.
With the kind of boxers we are planning to put on the show, we believe it’s going to be massive.
At the last edition in December 2015, a Nigerian, Waidi ‘Skoro’ Usman lost the African Boxing Union featherweight title to Edward Kakembo of Uganda, were you personally disappointed?
As a patriot, I was disappointed that a Nigerian boxer did not win the ABU title. I was also disappointed that a boxer that we had invested-in could not win the title, but I was not disappointed that a foreigner came and won.
The attitude for a great sporting event is not to win at all cost; and home advantage does not really exist anyway. We did everything to prepare him but unfortunately he fell ill just days to the event, but he already had his mind-set on the bout and we had to encourage him.
Uganda’s Edward ‘Shaha’ Kakembo celebrates his ABU title victory over Nigeria’s Waidi ‘Skoro’ Usman on December 26, 2015 at the Indoor Sports Hall of the National Stadium, Surulere-Lagos. Photo: Emmanuel Osodi
It was a good fight, the judges were foreigners and we did not try to manipulate anything and that is what we at Flykites would not do, which is the trust GOtv has on us. We would not manipulate, so as a Nigerian I was disappointed.
Sir, can you disclose the boxers that will feature at the Boxing Night VI exclusively to Naij.com Sports?
It is not a possibility and because boxing is a very interesting sport, people have to sign contracts; but if it is the people we hope would fight and we are not sure yet. We hope that Stanley Edo-Boy will fight, we hope that fans favourite, Fijabi will also feature. We are hopeful that otto Joseph will also fight, and we think Afolabi Afonja Warrior will also fight.
However, we are yet to conclude because we don’t know who they would fight. Boxing is funny because there are some forms of logistics; first of all, we have to do the match-making, and then contracts before approval from the NBB of C, but we are in the middle of these processes already
No comments:
Post a Comment