WALTER Kautondokwa’s inexorable march to a world title shot continued on Saturday night when he retained his WBO Africa middleweight title after knocking out Meshack Mwankemwa of Tanzania in the third round.
Kautondokwa wore Mwankemwa down with some big body shots and the end came 2 minutes 25 seconds into the third round when he sent the Tanzanian crashing into the ropes with a vicious left hook.
Mwankemwa was counted out and took a while to recover, while Kautondokwa and his trainer Nestor Tobias celebrated his 16th consecutive win as a professional boxer.
After the fight Tobias expressed the hope that Kautondokwa would soon get a world title shot.
“The goal is to get him to the top and to get a shot at the world title. We are getting closer and closer, this boy was at number 15 and right now he is at number seven. Next week we will have the WBO convention so after his performance now we will put in a good motivation for him and hope for the best,” he said.
“We hope to get the number one spot because nobody wants to fight this kid, especially the champion (Billy Joe Saunders), but we can only force them by getting him to the number one spot so that it can be mandatory and nobody can run away,” he added.
It was a fine conclusion to the Champions in Action Boxing Bonanza at the Windhoek Country Club that kept a crowd of about 400 people entertained throughout.
In the main supporting bout Mikka Shonena won the WBO Africa welterweight title on a unanimous points decision against Juma Waiswa of Uganda.
Shonena was in control from the start landing jabs and left hooks at will but he could not put the rugged Ugandan away. Waiswa took Shonena’s best shots but they had little effect as he kept on coming forward and gave as good as he got.
Shonena however landed by far the most punches and was a comfortable winner with all three the judges scoring it 120-107 in his favour.
— By Helge Schütz, AllAfrica
