WINDHOEK – All eyes will be on Schwerin the city of the seven lakes in Germany next weekend, August 24, when boxer Wilberforce Shihepo, aka ‘Black Mamba’ squares off against Arthur Abraham for the WBO international super middleweight title.
Shihepo who fights under the MTC Nestor Sunshine Boxing & Fitness Academy boasts an excellent record of 23 wins and only 5 defeats from 28 bouts in the paid ranks and currently ranks 7th in the world. The strongly built boxer is the current WBO Africa champion and will have his work cut out for him against the three-times former world champion. According to reports from the academy, the flamboyant boxer is in good shape and ready to win his fight where the winner will become a mandatory challenger to the world title. Abraham comes into this fight with an impressive 36 victories and four losses from 40 fights of which 28 failed to go the full distance.
Born in Yerevan, Armenia Abraham acquired German residency and was the IBF middleweight champion from 2005 to 2009 making a record 10 successful title defences, the 4th most in middleweight history.
He surprisingly lost his WBO super middleweight title to Robert Stieglitz three months ago and is nevertheless determined to reclaim his crown, but the American born German national must first negotiate his way past the hard punching Black Mamba to get another shot at the world title.
The MTC Nestor Sunshine Boxing & Fitness Academy has been blessed with world-class boxers and by extension Namibia and is proud of its prized boxers, whom it has undertaken to support by any means necessary. “We also like to thank the timely intervention of the MTC sponsorship. The academy is profoundly grateful to have had such a successful boxing year, producing a world title and international titles. We also applaud the general public for their continued support, because without them we would be nothing,” reads a statement from the academy.
15 Aug 2013 – Story by Staff Reporter