‘My last fight with Jeff Fenech was a fixed match’ – Azumah Nelson reveals

Former World Boxing Council (WBC) Super featherweight champion and boxing legend, Prof. Azumah Nelson has revealed that his last fight with Jeff Fenech was an exhibition fight.

According to him, the Australian had heard of the Azumah Nelson Foundation and what he was doing with it so called for a fight to raise funds to support the Ghanaian philanthropist agenda.

Speaking exclusively to The Ghana Report (TGR), the ‘boxing professor’ narrated how Fenech convinced him to fight for the third time.

“After our second fight in Australia, people were insulting Jeff Fenech that Azumah Nelson is coming. So, I was in my farm one day when he called me that champ, I want us to make some fight for your foundation.

What he said sounded nice and made me happy and I said oh…my friend is thinking about my foundation so I said that’s good and I said when? He said two months’ time and I said I am fat now; I have to train but he said things to convince me to fight him and I accepted it,” the boxing professor narrated.

He further disclosed how Jeff Fenech asked him to tell the Australian press and the international community how he was going to knock out the Australian in their last epic encounter.

Azumah Nelson said, “When you come to Australia, the press are waiting to interview you so when you come, tell them I’m going to knock him out.”

When asked whether his last encounter in the boxing ring with the Australian was not a competitive fight, the former WBC Featherweight and Super Featherweight champion stated… “Yes, after the fight he said he won so that the people will stop disturbing him. Oh, it was not a serious fight, it’s like an exhibition.”

It would be recalled that the two great boxers treated the boxing world to exhilarating skills on three occasions; the first in Las Vegas, USA in June 26, 1991, Melbourne, Australia on March 1, 1992 and the last fight was also fought in Australia on June 24, 2008.

Responding to a question as to what kept him going to have held his world title for more than a decade, the Ghanaian legend attributed his success story to God, discipline and hard work.

He advised up and coming boxers to place God at the centre of everything that they do as that is the secret to getting to excelling in their field.

“Well, there is a saying that if you really want it you will get it. My secret is God fearing, discipline and hard work. If you are doing something and you don’t put in God first, you can never succeed so I always tell my children; those that I’ve been training that it doesn’t matter how strong you are, you have to know God. You need to know God, if you don’t know God, it will be terrible to go forward; it will never be possible,” he said.

Azumah Nelson with nick name; “The Professor”, “Zoom Zoom”, “The Terrible Warrior” is widely considered the greatest African boxer of all time.

He is currently the 31st greatest pound for pound boxer of all time in Boxrec’s ranking, and held the WBC Featherweight title once and the WBC Super Featherweight title twice.

This earned him big recognition with his induction as the very first African into the International Boxing Hall of Fame.