‘Snoozer’ of a fight gets fans booing

Zolani Tete’s team has accused Argentine challenger Omar Narvaez of a negative approach in their WBO bantamweight title fight in Belfast, Northern Ireland, at the weekend.

Tete won every round en route to 120-108 scores across the board to register the second defence of his crown. Narvaez never tried to make a fight of it.

The Argentine veteran hardly put up a sustained offence, allowing Tete to pot-shot him with jabs throughout the fight, which deteriorated into a boring affair.

In 2011, Narvaez moved up to challenge Filipino Nonito Donaire for the very same crown he fought Tete for.

Narvaez went into survival mode from the first bell, eliciting loud boos from the spectators and taking flak from the media.

But he was expected to at least show up against Tete as a win would have made him the first Argentine boxer to win three world titles.

Tete’s team were disappointed by the cautious approach of the South American.

“Narvaez never tried to make a fight of it, but we suspected that and prepared for him in advance,” Tete’s manager, Mla Tengimfene, said.

“We worked on our jab to pile up points and never got carried away. What is important is that we retain our title and now that we are over Narvaez we will look at other possibilities.”
The judges did not give the Argentine veteran a single round in a lacklustre bout described as “snoozer” by several international boxing publications.

So boring was the fight that it watered down Tete’s drama from his last fight at the same venue in November, when he left people stunned with a 11-second knockout of Siboniso Gonya to set a new record.

The win prompted his English promoter Frank Warren to bring him back to the venue which is the backyard of Ryan Burnett, with whom Tete is chasing for a unification clash.

Burnett holds the WBA crown in the division, but he is affiliated to Warren’s rival Eddie Hearn, making the fight impossible to organise.

But Tengimfene is not worried by the latest performance of his charge.

“We did all we were expected to do and are glad Zolani is still a world champion,” he insisted. “Zolani cannot keep knocking out every opponent because some will come determined to avoid being knocked out.”

The win took Tete’s fight record to 27 victories and three losses and Narvaez dropped to three defeats and two draws in 53 bouts.

ý Meanwhile, Mdantsane veteran Ali Funeka, 40, lost a split decision to Russian Islam Dumanov in a junior welterweight clash in Spain on Friday.