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Tadious Manyepo Sports Reporter
THE hyped bout between middleweight boxing star Charles Manyuchi and challenger Modercai Donga was never going to take place even if the former had not withdrawn.

Manyuchi was scheduled to take on his old adversary at Harare Show Grounds on December 21.

But the former World Boxing Council silver welterweight champion chickened out this week after the two camps failed to agree on a number of issues.

However, it has since emerged the bout was never going to take place as due process had not been followed.

In any case, there were several technical issues which both Manyuchi and his challenger had ignored, which would have crippled the fight.

The fight was supposed to be promoted by Clyde Musonda’s Deltaforce Boxing Academy but, up to Monday when Manyuchi opted out, there was no contract signed to that effect.

Musonda confirmed he was having a tough time in the background trying to convince the pair to put pen to paper.

“They were yet to sign a contract. As soon as we had agreed that I was going to promote their fight, I drafted a contract which both parties were supposed to commit to but it was a deadlock,” said Musonda.

“There were issues to do with which weight category the two would fight under.

‘’Manyuchi is a middleweight and wants the fight under that section and Donga was ready for a super-middleweight class.

“We hit a deadlock and I was trying to convince them to agree on one category.”

Without a contract in place, the Zimbabwe National Boxing Control Board wouldn’t have sanctioned the bout.

And, with 10 days before the date of the fight, Donga had not resigned from the ZNBCB where he is a board member.

Veteran referee and ZNBCB member, Patrick Mukondiwa, said for Donga to go into the ring, he was supposed to resign from his post first. “To start with, I only read about their bout on social media and eventually in the mainstream media,” said Mukondiwa.

“There was no signed contract, which is a pre-requisite for a fight. Both boxers were never serious.”

“They were supposed to sign their contract with the promoter who, even now, I don’t know whether they had that.”

‘’Maybe, Charles had his reasons why he chickened out”

“And, for Donga, you know he is a board member and cannot under any circumstances box unless if he was going to resign first.”

“Otherwise, as things turned out, there was never going to be a fight due to those technical flaws.”