Kiduku eyes world titles after victory

Dar es Salaam. Tanzania’s prominent professional boxer, Twaha “Kiduku” Rubaha, says he now turns his focus to winning international titles instead of local ones.

Kiduku made the comment after his unanimous decision win over Abdallah “Dulla Mbabe” Pazi. Their middle weight ten round non- title bout took place in the early hours of yesterday at the Ubungo Plaza in Dar es Salaam. The Morogoro based boxer, who scored 98-91, 98-91 and 98-91 from all the three judges, was rewarded a Toyota Crown car for his victory.

He said he now wants to make the nation feel proud of him by winning titles from the world’s famous professional boxing organisations such as the World Boxing Council (WBC), the International Boxing Federation (IBF) and the World Boxing Association (WBA).

He said he has won many local fights and that it is now time he searched for international honours.

“I know it is not an easy task to win international honours, but you need to train hard. If you have a mission and vision, you can definitely achieve your goal. I have started to focus on world titles and I am sure I will attain my goal,”said Kiduku. He said he is very happy to win the bout against Mbabe, who has been his main challenger in his career. “I am happy to win the fight and drive the car I was rewarded back home.

“It was not an easy victory against Mbabe who also targeted to win both the fight and the car-prize. I did not start the first round at my best as I allowed Mbabe to hit me before I went down. However, I recovered and continued to fight,”said Kiduku.

“It was the biggest mistake I made in my career. It would have cost me had I not trained well. I managed to beat 10 mandatory counts from referee Pendo Njau,” he said.

Kiduku said Mbabe is one of the tough challengers, despite beating him for the second time in a row. “Mbabe is a good boxer, whom you need to be very keen to fight,” he said.