Saturday, April, 6,2024

F. Juma (UGA) v S. Sashev (BUL)

Rotterdam, Netherlands

Fazil Juma, once Uganda’s boxing poster boy who has now sought solace in the Netherlands returns to the ring on April 6, aiming to revive his career.

The pint-sized electric featherweight takes on Bulgaria’s Stefan Sashev vowing to turn tables and hit the scale again.

The two are set to battle at the Maas Arena, Hall 4 in the Dutch city of Rotterdam, in a six-round contest.

Now a professional boxer with an unbeaten ring record of 5-0-0, Juma is confident it is not yet over for him, and against Sashev, the world is going to witness a talent they have been craving to watch again.

“I’m back into serious business. No doubt 2024 is my year. I have a lot to offer my fans since in the last few years they have rarely watched me in the ring. This time I’m going to serve them a buffet on nonstop action” Juma told Vision Sports.

“My comeback starts with this Bulgarian. I’m going to lecture him. The good thing is, I have no ring rust since my last fight was in November last year.”

He comes into this one on the back of winning the Dutch featherweight title when he unanimously defeated Bosnia and Herzegovina-born Luka Veljovic in November 2023.

Fazil’s boxing stardom only came when he was 18-years-old when he won Uganda a flyweight bronze medal at the 2014 Glasgow Commonwealth Games.

He won another bronze at the 2015 Rabat Africa Boxing Championship before the IBA (International Boxing Association) came calling for him to box in the APB (IBA Pro Boxing) tournament where he used to earn USD 10,000 per fight.

It is at this point many compared him to electric Uganda flyweights like Justin ‘The Destroyer’ Jjuuko who won a Commonwealth boxing gold for Uganda at the same age in 1990, Auckland in Australia.

Others likened him to another gem in Jolly Katongole (Rip) arguably the best flyweight Uganda has produced in the last 30 years.

But Fazil’s boxing career hit a snag first with his administrative wrangles with a then Kenneth Gimugu headed Uganda Boxing Federation (UBF).

He was suspended for being overweight at the 2015 World Boxing Championship in Doha, Qatar before he was not selected to be part of The Bombers (Uganda boxing team) that punched its weight at the 2016 Rio Africa qualifiers in Cameroon.

After the Uganda Olympics Committee (UOC) sponsored him to represent the country at the 2016 Eindhoven Boxing Championship in the Netherlands where he won a silver medal, he vanished in the same country together with his colleagues, Naser Bukenya, Sula Segawa, and Atanas Mugerwa.

In his last days while in Uganda, it had looked like his boxing career was done and dusted but since turning pro in 2021, the Nagulu-born pugilist now looks to have found solace in the Netherlands if not reviving himself.