BOXING MECCA
Tete dedicates fight to Baby Lee
As Zolani Tete enters the Birmingham Arena in the UK on November 30 he will not only be fighting Johnriel Casimero, but for the spirit of his late stablemate Leighandre Jegels.
Jegels was gunned down by her estranged policeman boyfriend on her way to a training session with Tete at All Winners Boxing Club in Mdantsane in August.
The duo were training mates who even shared towels while pushing each other to the limit to fulfil their fistic dreams.
Already an SA and WBA Pan African female junior bantamweight champion, Jegels was chasing for a world title to join Tete on the world stage.
Tete will continue with the dream, but he will be fighting a battle of two fronts.
“I will dedicate my fight to Baby Lee,” said Tete who will engage in his first fight since the tragedy.
“I will have her photo plastered onto my boxing trunks. This will be to show that I am with her in spirit.”
After the tragedy Tete, a gym freak, was so devastated that he could not even train for a couple of days.
“I did not have the energy to train without her. I knew that I would just see her image and that would distract me.”
After attending counselling Tete has picked up, using the tragedy as an inspiration to smash Casimero to pieces.
While a loss never crossed his mind, the responsibility of having to preserve Jegels’s memory has made the defeat a foreign word.
“Just imagine if I were to lose the fight with my trunks showing Baby Lee’s photo.
“That would be the most heinous crime I could ever commit. I would not forgive myself.”
Tete will be gunning for the fourth defence of the WBO bantamweight crown with an eye on unification if he wins.
With the fight of the year candidate contest waged by Naoya Inoue and Nonito Donaire, who unified the IBF and WBA titles, it is only Tete and Tunisian born Frenchman Oubaali Nordine who can be claimants as champions in the talent-rich bantamweight division.
Nardine holds the WBC title which is already a target of the Ring champion and pound-forpound star Inoue.
Tete does not mind facing the all-conquering “Japanese Monster” for the undisputed honours.
“It is well and good if Inoue collects all these belts for me so that I can simply take all of them from him,’ he said.
“All I need to do is to beat Casimero and then see what happens.”
And with Jegels’s spirit, he does not doubt that the Birmingham Arena will present him with a platform to properly pay homage to his stablemate.