West Africa Boxin Union (WABU) welterweight champion, Rilwan “Baby Face” Babatunde (left) battling with his Ghanaian challenger, Edem Biki during the GOtv Boxing Night 19 in Lagos

GOtv Boxing Night will be marking its 20th edition later this year. It is almost five years since it debuted at the Indoor Sports Hall of the National Stadium, Lagos.

Before then, anyone predicting that a Nigerian boxer fighting locally would earn N100, 000 would be branded a liar, as the amount was the stuff of unrealistic dreams. Numerous factors inhibited boxing promoters, administrators and boxers from harbouring such a dream then.

Top among them was a reluctance to invest in the sport. This ensured that the boxing boom of the 1960s, through the 80s, had become distant memories by the 1990s. Boxing promotions became intermittent and subsequently almost dried up.

The few promoters, who kept the flag flying, we’re unable to bring back the glory days. As promotions dwindled, promoters, understandably, paid a pittance to boxers, who took huge risks by fighting uninsured. The big stars of the heady days aged and quit the sport leaving the scene for the next generation, whose members toiled valiantly but were eventually crushed by the dire situation. Boxers waited between four and five years to get fights.

Successive generations of Nigerian boxers drifted into menial vocations, thereby robbing the country of a place on the world boxing map. Those who chose to continue did in hope,


Source; https://maniagist.com/2019/08/03/plights-of-nigerian-pugilists-before-arrival-of-gotv-boxing-nightwabu/