Windhoek
Namibia’s former world champion Paulus ‘The Rock’ Ambunda says he is humbled by the opportunity to fight for the world title for the second time on home soil.
“This is the kind of opportunity that every boxer can only dream of and I therefore consider myself fortunate and blessed to be in this position. I’m really looking forward to making Namibia proud,” said Ambunda.
Equally excited was boxing promoter Nestor Tobias, who sang praises for Ambunda and Namibian boxing.
“Ambunda is a world-class athlete truly deserving of this fortune. He is a former world champion, the current WBA International champion, with a good world rating. He is rated in the top in four different boxing organizations. He is rated number 3 in the world by the WBO, 11th by the IBF, 14th by the WBA and 17th by the IBO. Being rated in four top class boxing organizations is an honour and makes Ambunda a true ambassador of sports in Namibia,” said Tobias.
Tobias has admitted that getting a shot at the world title is by far the most difficult thing to do in boxing because you compete with all other promoters in the world for the same opportunity. You also need to be considered a “class fighter”, which means you must actively be fighting top rated fighters.
However, the realization of this fight is being marred by finances as the MTC Sunshine Academy is faced with a daunting task of raising more than N$3.4 million to stage the world spectacle in Namibia on August 1, 2015.
Approached for comment, MTC’s Tim Ekandjo admitted that it will take a joint effort by all stakeholders to raise this amount of money before August 1 and it will be a real pity if the fight cannot go ahead due to lack of funds.
“The academy’s budget is depleted because of all the big fights they had so we would have to resort to fundraising initiatives and engage the ministry of sport to assist where they can. I therefore urge all boxing fans to support the different fundraising initiatives. Namibian boxing unfortunately does not have the luxury of revenue from TV rights that all promoters use to stage such big fights, and this is by far Namibian promoters’ biggest disadvantage because they need to resort to raising funds on their own which is unheard of in other countries staging such big fights,” said Ekandjo.
Tobias is confident that Ambunda will make history for Namibia and will clinch the 2nd world title in just two years. Once he does that, the plan is to unify the title with either the WBA, WBC, IBF or WBO to become a unified world champion.