Boxing League: Mubiru, Kyobe trading verbal hooks

Before Derrick Mubiru and Jona Kyobe face off in the highly-anticipated featherweight contest at Club Obligato, Saturday night, they are trading verbal jabs and hooks.

Both are joint leaders of their division with six points after two wins apiece in the Uganda Boxing Champions League and whoever wins goes three clear.

“I will slaughter Derrick like I slaughter goats and show him that I’m the better fighter,” Kyobe of Lukanga Boxing Club, vowed in a video that circulated on WhatsApp groups since Sunday. “I want to beat him and then beat his father.”

Verbal artillery 

Now Mubiru took that last statement as an insult to his father Martin Mubiru, one of the best flyweights in his generation, who won bronze at the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne.

“Did he say he will beat me and my father? That boy must be joking. Already I was going to beat him, now I’ll punish him for insulting my father,” he said, with a contemptuous smile.

Mubiru, who wears his father’s white trunks to the ring, added: “Kyobe is just a talker, but action will decide who is who. He has the power but I have power and the brains.”

His coach Charles Ssemakalu backed him “Kyobe is the weakest in that division and might not last the distance,” he told Daily Monitor during a training session at Namungoona Boxing Club earlier this week.

In what Ssemakalu called light training, Mubiru had four sparring rounds with youth middleweight Timothy Muwanguzi and five rounds of pad work with two coaches.

In his last fight on January 15, Mubiru defeated the more experienced Marvin Ssali of Zebra Boxing Club after the referee stopped the contest in the fifth round. Kyobe’s last win was also against Ssali on points.

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