Major and Latest Boxing news in Ghana
Landguards end boxer’s career
The boxing fraternity was thrown into a state of shock after boxer Ayittey Okaija’s left wrist was chopped off by landguards last Monday during a land dispute at Adjagotey, a suburb of Kwabenya in Accra.
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The 36-year-old fighter, who trains with the Bronx Gym at Bukom in Accra, underwent surgery at the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital yesterday, effectively ending his boxing career.
He allegedly got his left wrist severed during an altercation with landguards, after the boxer and a friend attempted to drive away some men they had spotted working on a parcel of land they claimed belonged to their family.
Okaija’s trainer, Carl Lokko of Bronx Boxing Gym, who is yet to come to terms with the harrowing experience suffered by his boxer, told the Graphic Sports the incident had destroyed the that career of the fighter.
‘’I feel really sad about his person, his personality has been destroyed and his career shuttered,’’ he solemnly told the paper.
According to the trainer, the entire boxing fraternity at the Bronx Gym had been gutted by Okaija’s predicament.
Meanwhile the Ghana Boxing Authority(GBA) is yet to make a statement on the incident.
Public Relations Officer, Naa Darkoa Dodoo, told the Graphic Sports that the association was yet to meet to make any pronouncements on the incident.
Ironically, the boxing fraternity has been engaged in some violent attacks involving so-called landguards. In 2002, a retired professional boxer, Joseph Telewu, was sentenced to death by an Accra High Court for his involvement in the murder of two policemen during a land dispute at Ablekuma in 1998.
Eight years ago, international boxing referee/judge Godfrey Cobbinah was shot dead by landguards at Achaiman, near Amasaman, when he was on official duty to inspect a parcel of land owned by his colleagues at the Internal Revenue Service.