By Michael Uugwanga

THE last time the country produced a world boxing champion was in 2018 with former boxer Paulus “Rock” Ambunda being the last local boxer to win a world title when he won the International Boxing Organisation (IBO) Super-Bantamweight title.
Over the years, the country had produced four former world champions, Simon, Ambunda, Paulus Moses and Julius Indongo.
However, the inability of the code to produce world champions is in stark contrast local talent notably Fillipus ‘Energy’ Nghitumbwa , Abed Shikongo, Harry Simon Jr, Mateus Heita and Flame Nangolo.
Nghitumbwa is the current holder of the World Boxing Organisation (WBO) Global Super Bantamweight, which means that any time he can fight for a world title. Nangolo on the other hand is the holder of the WBO Super Featherweight title, while Shikongo is the World Boxing Association (WBA) Africa Welterweight title.
Heita was so close to winning the World Boxing Council (WBC) World Featherweight, only to lose to American boxer Bruce Carrington in the USA last month. 
Currently the country is starved with a world title crown and it will need luck if any world title is to come to the land of the brave once again.

EXPLANATION
This week Confidente caught up with Simon as he shared his thoughts on why the country is struggling to produce another world title and why Namibian boxers have struggled to beat Americans.
Simon is the only Namibian boxer to have beaten an American, when he beat Winky Wright to claim the WBO Junior middleweight title in Johannesburg in 1998 and is still regarded by majority of Namibians as the country’s best ever boxer.
He urged local trainers to try seeking assistance from experienced foreign trainers or even former great boxers such as him to assist them with new boxing techniques.
Simon’s great career was down to good training and advices from South Africa’s legendary boxer and trainer Brian Mitchell.
“If you have a gym and you have good boxers you can call up a legendary boxer like Harry Simon. [I might] bring in trainer from outside, just to come and advice, not that they are going to [train] your boxers,” said Simon.
“I was with eight different gyms under different trainers. All these different trainers taught me different things, until I ended up with Mitchell, so I had all that experience. [However], these local trainers are alone and they do not bring in experienced trainers to the gym,” he added. 
Simon noted that as former great boxers they are supposed to help train up and coming boxers correcrtly. 
“You find boxers just hitting the punching bag and not the way they are supposed to hit it. I am not boasting but I have not seen a boxer that has reached my level, not even in the next five years. I did not see anyone, not even my son (Harry Simon Jr).”

TRENDSETTERS
Simon is the first Namibian boxer to have won a world title in 1998 winning the WBO Junior middleweight.  He was followed by Moses became the second Namibian to win a world title when he won the WBA Lightweight title in 2009, then Ambunda with the WBO Bantamweight title in 2013 and the IBO Bantamweight title in 2015.
Indongo became the first Namibian to win three world titles in one night when he won the WBA, International Boxing Federation (IBF) and IBO Light-Welterweight titles in 2016.