By Mesuli Zifo
THE bypassing of Zolani Tete for a WBO bantamweight title shot in favour of a boxer he beat is raising eyebrows back home.
Rated third in the bantamweight, Tete has been passed on for the title in favour of Paul Butler despite the fact he knocked him out in eight rounds when they fought for the IBF junior bantamweight title in March last year
Since that fight Tete has become Butler’s promotional stablemate under the banner of Queensberry Promotions owned by British promoter Frank Warren.
In order to let them go separate ways, Tete was moved to the bantamweight even though he is still capable of making the junior bantamweight while Butler was steered to pursue a world title shot in the junior bantamweight.
However in a WBO junior bantamweight title eliminator Butler failed to make the weight leading to the cancellation of the fight.
On the same card, Tete scored a stoppage win over Mexican Victor Ruiz to vault into the top three of the WBO ratings while Butler is down the pecking order at 12 spot.
However reports have surfaced that Butler is being pushed to challenge newly crown WBO bantamweight champion Marlon Tapales of Philippines while Tete is out in the cold.
Instead Tete is being offered a clash against WBA junior featherweight champion and avoided Cuban monster Guillermo Rigondeaux.
Tete is flatly refusing the fight arguing that he is not a junior featherweight.
“My natural weight is junior bantamweight but I can fight in the bantamweight as well,” he said
“I have been offered to fight Rigo but Rigo would be too big for me.”
SA boxing fans are seeing red about what they claim is the ill-treatment of Tete by Warren in favour of a local boy.
To make matters worse Warren was quoted as saying he would do everything in his power to push Butler to a world title shot while no mention was made about Tete.
Warren admitted that he was gutted when Butler was knocked out by Tete but still pledged to supporting him all the way.
Tete’s manager Mla Tengimfene declined to comment about the issue even though one could read by his body language that he is also not pleased with the developments.
Tete said he would wait for the decision of his management about his next step of action
