The International Boxing Federation (IBF) bantamweight world title contender Landile “Mandown” Ngxeke has started sharpening his toolkit in camp ahead of the biggest fight of his career.
The Eastern Cape born boxer has been slated to meet Mexico’s Jose Salas Reyes for the vacant IBF bantamweight world title. The date and venue for the championship clash is yet to be announced. His manager Colin “Nomakanjani” Nathan said the youngster hit the ground running on Wednesday after they got the order from IBF to fight for the vacant bantamweight world title on Tuesday.
The ink barely dried on Ngxeke’s contract after joining No Doubt Management the Nomakanjani magic happened. Ngxeke who holds the IBF international title joined forces with Nathan’s management company last week and days at his new home he got a world title shot.
The New Jersey sanctioning body ordered the South African fighter who is ranked in fourth position to contest for the vacant IBF bantamweight world title with a third placed Reyes as both first and second spots are vacant.
The title was left vacant by the Japanese three weight-division world champion Junto Nakatani. Nakatani relinquished both WBC and IBF belts to move up to the junior featherweight division.
“He started in the gym training on Monday and when we got the order on Tuesday, we started preparing for Salas on Wednesday.
Both parties accepted the order for the vacant world title straight away. This was on Tuesday night South African time. So we will start the negotiation process in the next few days. In terms of who will promote, location, date, and venue, it still has to be discussed,” explained Nathan.
The award-winning boxing manager said Ngxeke couldn’t believe it when he broke the news to him. “He couldn’t believe it! He kept asking me, Paps , are you serious? Really, are you serious? It was an amazing moment giving him the news,” he said.
On how Ngxeke joined his stable, Nathan said: “Landile called me several weeks back, telling me that he had no contract and wanted to join me and wanted to contest for a world title. I did tell him that I would navigate the best possible opportunities for him. But I figured that I could get him a World title shot just seeing that, at the time with Junto Nakatani rumoured to be moving up, I was confident I could make something happen,” said Nathan.
