The country’s best pound-for-pound boxer Zolani Tete is anxious for his English promoter Frank Warren to tell him the name of the opponent he will fight in Liverpool on March 12.
The Mdantsane southpaw, who is training in Johannesburg for the fight, will share the bill with Cuban Guillermo Rigondeaux, widely recognised as the best junior-featherweight boxer in the world.
The tournament at Echo Arena will also feature the WBO lightweight title clash between Derry Matthews and Terry Flanagan.
Rigondeaux will face Jazza Dickens in a bid to revive his career after being subjected to a lengthy period of inactivity that resulted in him being stripped of his WBA and WBO world titles.
While the other elite fighters on the bill have been informed of who they are fighting, Tete is the exception, and the long wait to find out who he is facing is not ideal for his preparations.
His manager Mla Tengimfene has been waiting in vain for the information from Warren. “I do not know why it is taking this long to announce the name of Zolani’s opponent, but we are waiting patiently,” he said.
The Tete camp have been promised they would be informed of the identity of his opponent, but so far days have crawled by without a word from the English organisers.
Ironically, Rigondeaux was first proposed as an opponent for Tete despite their weight disparity; the Cuban campaigns in the junior- featherweight division while Tete fights two divisions below at the junior-bantamweight level.
“We flatly objected to fight Rigondeaux, because firstly we are and secondly no one has ever looked good against that guy,” Tengimfene revealed.
For now, Tete is concentrating on physical training as well as conditioning under the eye of former SA bantamweight champion Phumzile Matyhila. His chief trainer Loyiso Mtya will join him later, and by that time the 27-year-old former IBF champion should know who he will fight on his return to Echo Arena.
Tete left Liverpool fans mesmerised when he knocked out the previously unbeaten Paul Butler in the eighth round with a picture- perfect left uppercut in March last year. He has since fought twice, scoring a points decision and an eighth-round stoppage over Filipino and Mexican opponents respectively.
However, he was not defending his IBF crown, having vacated it when he found the terms and conditions of a mandatory title defence against Puerto Rican McJoe Arroyo unfavourable to him.
Tengimfene said the Tete camp would depart for England seven days before the fight.