Maurice Kambukwe 

Marco Ndlovu

Mateus ‘The Beast’ Heita successfully defended his World Boxing Association (WBA) Pan African Super Bantamweight title against Jonas Matheus in a tightly contested bout in Walvis Bay on Saturday evening.

In the process, Heita also scooped the WBO super bantamweight title that was on offer.

Heita came into the bout as a fan favourite and dominated the first seven rounds, as he managed to hurt Jonas in round three, resulting in the challenger holding onto him to see out the round and buy himself time to recover.

However, Jonas made the fight a difficult one for the judges to score, as he came back strongly in the second half of the fight, using his jab effectively and landing telling punches on his opponent.

With both fighters unsure of the scorecard in the last three rounds, Jonas upped the ante and caused all sorts of problems for his opponent, but it was too little too late, as Heita had scored enough points over the 12 rounds to retain his belt. The three judges scored the fight 119-111, 115-113 and 116-114 for a unanimous decision victory in favour of Heita – much to the dismay of some of the spectators, who believed the judges got it wrong.

Speaking after the bout, promoter and trainer Nestor Tobias said he was impressed with the quality Heita displayed in the ring. 

“It was a great fight. The guy showed how much of a good boxer he is, and I am impressed with everything that was done inside the ring,” he told New Era Sport yesterday.

“For us and Heita, it means that his rating will go up and see him joining the top 15, which gives him the chance to challenge for the world title very soon,” said Tobias.

He also thanked fellow boxing stable, MTC Salute Boxing Academy, for making such a great fight possible. Heading forward, he said they will look at how his boxers can get better fights.

In the main supporting bout, Phillipus Shaanika defeated Julius Sheetheni in the national super bantamweight 10-rounder with a unanimous decision.

- mkambukwe@nepc.com.na

- Nampa