Chilemba speaks out on change of trainer

Malawian boxing icon Issac ‘Golden Boy’ Chilemba has spoken out on his recent move to hire American trainer Roy Jones Jnr, saying he did so after being let down by his previous manager Buddy McGirt.

Chilemba said this in an interview yesterday from Las Vegas, United States where he has stepped up preparations for his upcoming North American Boxing Federation (Nabf) light heavyweight title bout against Ukranian Oleksandr ‘The Nail’ Gvozdyk.

“McGirt, who was my trainer [in US] for the past five years, let us down for the fight against Sergey Kovalev in Russia.

“He didn’t want to come in camp and train me for unexplained reasons and yet that was the biggest fight of my career this far. I was left with no option then, but to train with my manager Jodi Solomon and [as you might have seen] she took the trainer’s role during that fight.

“So, after that fight, we spoke to Roy and now…here we are,” he said.

Chilemba lost the bout to Kovalev, the reigning WBO, WBA and IBF light heavyweight champion, but he holds the impressive distinction as only the second fighter in Kovalev’s career to go the full 12 rounds.

He also said he is happy being trained by Jones whom he grew up admiring.

Jones Jnr won numerous world titles in the middleweight, super middleweight, light heavyweight, and heavyweight divisions, and is the only boxer in history to start his professional career as a light middleweight and go on to win a heavyweight title.

As an amateur he represented the United States at the 1988 Summer Olympics, winning a silver medal in the light middleweight division.n