Ricardo “Magic Man” Malajika says it was fantastic to meet boxing legends Terrence “Bud” Crawford, Oleksandr “The Cat” Usyk, Roberto “Hands of Stone” Duran, and Naseem “Prince” Hamed — members of the World Boxing Council (WBC) — in person in Thailand.
He is in Thailand to attend the WBC’s week-long convention.
Crawford from the US holds the WBA (Super), WBC, IBF, WBO, and The Ring super middleweight titles.
Usyk from Ukraine is the WBA (Super), WBC, WBO, IBO, and The Ring heavyweight world champion.
Duran is a retired boxing legend from Panama, who competed from 1968 to 2001 and held world championships in four weight classes.
Hamed is a British former professional boxer who competed from 1992 to 2002. He held multiple featherweight world championships between 1995 and 2000 and reigned as lineal champion from 1998 to 2001
Maljika arrived in Thailand on Monday, two days after chalking up the fourth successful defence of his IBO belt via a unanimous points decision against Vince “J-Vince” Paras from the Philippines.
Malajika travelled to Thailand with Rodney Berman’s Golden Gloves tournament coordinator, Jeff Ellis.
Rated No 3 for the WBC junior-bantamweight title held by Jesse “Bam Bam” Rodriguez, Maljika said: “I’m attending the convention to state my case...to try to get a world title fight in the near future.”
Malajika’s prosperous career trajectory is shaped by his managers, former WBA and IBF junior-lightweight world champion Brian Mitchell, and his wife, Sharleen Mitchell.
The Mexico-based WBC sanctioning boxing body is represented in SA by Peter Ngatane, a former Boxing SA board chairman, who is also in Thailand.
Sowetan
