DECEMBER 2000 SPORT HEADLINES

Tuesday, January 30, 2001 - Web posted at 10:25:40 AM GMT

Simon leaves for title defence
HELGE SCHUTZ

HARRY Simon leaves for England today to prepare for his fourth defence of the World Boxing Organisation junior middleweight title against Daniel Santos of Puerto Rico on Saturday, February 10.

Simon left for Johannesburg last week to wrap up his preparations and his manager Ellison Hijarunguru expressed satisfaction with his training and level of fitness after preparing in Windhoek for the last two months."

"So far it's going well.

I'm happy with Harry's fitness, while we also received great assistance from Mpush Makambi," he said.

Makambi, who held the South African middleweight title for five years and is a former International Boxing Organisation middleweight champion, is also a southpaw like Santos and, according to Hijarunguru, he provided invaluable assistance for Simon.

Santos recently relinquished his WBO welterweight title to move up a weight and challenge Simon for his title.

He has a very impressive record, having won 24 of his 27 fights, with 19 coming by way of knock outs.

According to a leading boxing analyst in South Africa, Simmy Lewis, Simon should be too strong for Santos."

"Santos has a good record but I think he's got a bit of a glass jaw.

In his last title defence against an English boxer in December, Santos went down in the first round, but got up and knocked his opponent out in the second round.

He was also knocked out by the former WBO welterweight champion, Ahmed Kattiev of Russia, but in their return bout Santos knocked Kattiev out in the fifth round to win the WBO welterweight title.

According to Hijarunguru, Simon will continue his sparring in England, where a host of boxers were "lining up to spar with him."

"Brian Mitchell's former assistant coach, Aerial Maladjie, will once again be his trainer, while Dean Powell of England will be the "cutman" in Simon's corner."

"Our main aim is still to fight Felix Trinidad, the World Boxing Association junior middleweight champion.

Harry's promoter, Frank Warren has opened negotiations with Trinidad's camp and there is also talk of Trinidad being at ringside to watch Harry's fight," Hijarunguru said.

He added that Simon's Namibian sparring partner, Ludwig Haimbodi, will fight his third professional fight on the undercard of Simon's fourth title defence, although his opponent is not known yet.

So far Haimbodi has won both his professional fights - the first one with a second round knock-out and the second one on points over four rounds.

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