Siyo’s backroom staff left with ‘bloody nose’

The crushing defeat of Duncan Village prospect Luzuko Siyo by Japanese Yohei Tobe at the Orient Theatre at the weekend has prompted his management to reshuffle the whole technical team that also guides his brother Siyabonga.

Siyo was thoroughly outboxed and outmuscled by Tobe for six rounds before he was knocked out cold in the seventh round of their WBA International bantamweight title clash.

Having promised to end the fight within four rounds, Siyo was the one who nearly got stopped in that round when he was wobbled by a stiff right hand.

The punch proved to be his Achilles heel as he could not neutralise it round after round until it finally struck home with devastating effect in the seventh round causing him to pitch forward face first before being counted out.

The loss came at a time when his sibling Siyabonga is preparing for an all-important IBO mini-flyweight title clash against Simpiwe Konkco at Emperors Palace in June.

This has prompted the Siyo’s management led by promoter Andile Sidinile to overhaul the technical team led by the boxers’ father Ben Mtyhaliselo.

Sidinile, whose Sijuta Promotions organised Luzuko’s fight and will be a co-promoter to the Siyabonga-Konkco clash, blamed the defeat on poor planning by the technical team.

“We saw that Tobe is a tall boxer with a reach advantage and we relayed that to Siyo’s technical team,” he said.

“But I am not told that there was never a strategy to counter that even though I, as a promoter, went out of my way to make sure that all the information about Tobe’s fighting style was available.”

Sidinile said he spoke to Luzuko after the fight and the boxer admitted that there was never a plan devised for the fight.

This had left Sidinile concerned about what might happen to Siyabonga ahead of his biggest fight.

“We cannot let this happen because you must understand that these boys are now in another level so they need be developed accordingly.”

Siyabonga will now be under the tutelage of veteran trainer Boy Boy Mpulampula, who manned Simpiwe Vetyeka’s corner in his impressive points victory over another Japanese Tsuyoshi Tameda in the main bout at the weekend fight.

Former world champion Vuyani Bungu, who has been acting as the technical trainer to Vetyeka, has now left and was absent at the weekend.

But Sidinile shot down reports that there has been a fallout with Bungu, arguing that the record holding former world champion’s busy schedule prevented him from being part of the technical team.

But Bungu denied that his absence in Vetyeka’s corner was because of his busy schedule.

“There are issues that made me to withdraw from Vetyeka’s technical team and that is all I am prepared to say,” he said.

Back to Luzuko’s defeat, Sidinile said he was confident that the Duncan Village boxer was still destined for stardom.

“We will support Luzuko because we believe that he has talent to be a world champion but we need to do things right.”