Colin Nathan has broken his silence about the confrontation his new recruit, Azinga Fuzile, had to endure with his former trainer Mzamo Njekanye during the premedical in Mdantsane last week.
This was when Njekanye took Fuzile aside and confronted him for leaving him for Johannesburg-based Nathan during the premedical of his IBF Africa junior-lightweight title clash against veteran Malcolm Klassen.
Fuzile forced Klassen to quit in four rounds of the clash held at the Orient Theatre in East London on Sunday.
In a tirade which lasted over 10 minutes, Njekanye gave the 22-year-old former protégè a tongue-lashing for ending their 12-year relationship which began when the Duncan Village boxer was only 10 years old.
While Njekanye played down the confrontation, Fuzile admitted that his former mentor gave him a serious tongue-lashing.
After the Daily Dispatch published the story, readers lamented Nathan’s failure to protect Fuzile ahead of the biggest fight of his career.
But on Monday Nathan, who admitted to have missed the incident, said he would not have intervened even if he had seen it.
“It is like a woman dumping a man and gets a new lover and the jilted lover confronts her,” he said.
“You as a new boyfriend cannot jump in and intervene because you do not know what they are talking about.”
Nathan said he had spoken to Fuzile about the possibility of bumping into Njekanye.
“We knew that sooner or later Fuzile would bump into Chief so he should know what do in that case,” he said.
Nathan said he had his own issues with Njekanye after the trainer used racial undertones to complain about Fuzile’s departure from him.
“To me you can call me anything , be it a lousy trainer or all those things but if you bring in the colour of my skin into it then you have crossed the line. As result I will never greet Chief again until he apologised for that.”
Some readers said Njekanye’s confrontation of Fuzile could have sidetracked the boxer from the big fight.
Nathan argued that Fuzile expected it so he could not be affected by it.
“You saw yourself what happened. It [confrontation] had no effect to him at all. In fact Fuzile went up a notch in terms of performance.”
Regarding Fuzile’s brilliant performance, Nathan said the Duncan Village boxer would be ready for a world title in 12 months’ time.
“I initially thought that he would take about 18 months but after what he did he proved that he will be ready within a year.”
Nathan, who enjoys cordial relations with the IBF which rated Fuzile on the 10th spot before Sunday’s demolition job of Klassen, said the left-hander would go via the New Jersey-based world sanctioning body.
The IBF champion is Tevin Farmer who also retained his crown when stopping James Tennyson in five rounds at the weekend.
While Fuzile is expected to leapfrog into the top 10 in the IBF ratings, some experts believe that he is ready now for Farmer.
But Nathan said he still wants to work with the boxing star before unleashing him on a world title challenge...