Kenyans exploded into joy last Saturday night when Fatuma ‘Iron Fist’ Zarika retained her World Boxing Council (WBC) Super Bantamweight title following a split decision win over Mexican challenger, Yalmith ‘Yelmi’ Mercado.
Judge Eddie Papoe of Ghana awarded Mercado the fight 96-94, while Kenya’s Bena Kaloki and Francis Chirwa from Malawi gave Zarika 97-93 and 99-91 after a 10 round slugfest that kept the packed Comesa Grounds dome at the Kenyatta International Sports Centre (KICC) Nairobi on the edge of their seats.
She came, she fought, she conquered! Relive the great battle between the champion @FatumaZarika and @YeimiMercado16.#ZarikaMercado #MakeItCount pic.twitter.com/RjeztOSfpM
— SportPesa (@SportPesa) September 11, 2018
This was different from her unanimous victory over Zambian Catherine Phiri last December. During the fight, Zarika had to dig deep to outclass the 20 year-old Mexican who is undoubtedly on her way to the top of her sport.
Speaking after the contest, John Gillies, one of the three coaches from 4 Corner Combat and Fitness Gym where Zarika trained for the showdown dubbed ‘Nairobi Fight Night’ explained how the Kenyan female boxing queen pulled off the victory.
“We knew that Mercado would come swinging punches and during training, we focused on making Zarika box. At no stage were we worried at all about winning the fight.
“Zarika has a boxing brain and we had to train her to distribute her energy evenly through the rounds and towards the end, Mercado tired as we expected she would,” Gilles who has over 20 years experience in kick boxing, boxing and mixed martial arts asserted.
The coach who was at Zarika’s corner during the breaks between the round hailed the WBC titleholder and is expecting to continue with the work they have done in the UK ahead of her next assignment.