AS I write this week’s piece, I sympathise with Exodus Boxing Promotions director Anthony Mwamba who, working with some foreign promoter, was supposed to stage the vacant International Boxing Federation (IBF) Continental Africa heavyweight title fight pitting compatriots Francis “Galagata” Zulu and Joseph “No Pressure” Chingangu in Dubai, United Arab Emirates on February 28.

Since the first announcement, this bout is being remembered more for its postponements-at least three of them at this count-than anything else.

Taking a peep into the past, I began to wonder whether corporate sponsors were unwilling to sponsor the bout due to a myriad of reasons, including the shortage of financial resources and possibly the history of the two fighters.

I asked myself whether Zulu’s style and Chingangu’s past conduct with promoters was still lingering in the minds of sponsors and was now a factor in their decision making.

This column has always criticized Zulu for his one-dimension style which tends to make most of his fights farcical, scrappy, ugly and boring through too many clinches. He’s so mechanical.

For his part, Chingangu (36- 27, 20 KOs- 9), had several beefs with three boxing stables that looked after him, but which he later ditched. He had irreconcilable differences with, Oriental Quarries Boxing Promotions, Amagents Boxing Promotions and his current promoter Exodus Boxing Stables before Mwamba made a surprising volte face to take him on again.

I’m not sure if these are of the reasons sponsors are slow to part with their money and pump into this fight, but I think it’s within the realm of logic to suspect they could be. Again, let me be clear. I am not trying to disparage Chingangu and Zulu, or to discourage sponsors, but merely asking you, dear reader, to think about.

It’s on record that Oriental Quarries ‘traded punches’ with their former charge Chingangu over a management issue, which led to their split a few years ago. Chingangu accused his erstwhile handlers of being a stumbling block to his aspirations of winning a major international title by denying him fights, while Oriental countered this by saying the last thing they could do was to impede the progress of a man they had been promoting from the time he became Zambian champion.

Oriental were hurt by what they saw as Chingangu’s unfounded allegations against them, which they said brought ridicule to their promotion, citing the boxer’s public refusal of a binding contract with the organisation.

Chingangu, on the other hand, saw himself as a sacrificial lamb that had been used to promote Oriental’s commercial interests. He cited the cancellation of the All-Africa bout promoted by South Africa’s Golden Gloves Boxing Promotions between himself and Jake Els. Chingangu was replaced by Zimbabwean boxer Thamsanga Dube.

Oriental began promoting Chingangu when he became Zambia heavyweight champ after dethroning Zulu (22- 17, 8 KOs -3-2). Chingangu had left his former promoters Exodus Boxing Promotions to join Oriental who, under their care, secured him three fights, grabbing the vacant ABU title on March 1, 2008 via a fifth round TKO of Ghana’s Isaac Ankro and making a successful defence of the title when he stopped South Africa’s Osborne Machimana on a seventh round TKO three months later.

But as if the wrangle with Oriental was not enough, Chingangu got embroiled in another ‘feud’ which had a distinct parallel to the last one. This time around, he was in a controversy with Amagents Boxing Promotions over purse money for the mandatory ABU title defense against Holland-based Awad Tamim of Tanzania, which failed to take off at first, but was staged later.

For some benevolent reason, Amagents had agreed to work with Chingangu only for the botched fight. The reason was that Chingangu had no promoter after being ditched by Oriental Boxing Promotions.

The issues between Chingangu and Amagents were about the venue of the fight and purse offered to Chingangu. Originally, the fight was scheduled to be staged in Zambia, but Amagents Promotions manager Rico Ricardo said it wasn’t easy to raise the K180 million (K180,000) budget due to time constraints.

And so, Tanzanian promoter, one Shomari, stepped in and proposed to stage the bout in Tanzania, offering Chingangu USD5,000, which the Zambian rejected, arguing that it was too niggardly for a champion especially since he would be fighting out of Zambia.

The question is, have the events from the past come to haunt the staging of the Zulu-Chingangu title fight ? mwale.simon@yahoo.co.uk / 0966 755 574 /0953744074