‘Black Tiger’ itching to maul rival

By MICHAEL MIYOBA ZAMBIA’s only professional mixed martial arts fighter, Robert “Black Tiger” Simbowe says preparations for his match anticipated fight with South Africa’s Stevo Law are progressing well. Simbowe, who is commonly known as the “Black Tiger” in the MMA world for his patience and pounce and strike style will next month face Law in a Lightweight bout at the Extreme Fighting Championship (EFC) 88. In an exclusive interview from South Africa, Simbowe, who is affiliated to Top Primate Academy Gym and coached by Rowan Katzew said he is not intimidated by his opponent who happens to be a professional wrestler. Simbowe said he has been working hard to bounce back from last month’s painful defeat to Rock Ilunga who beat the Zambian via a unanimous decision. “Law is a wrestler by profession and honestly speaking he doesn’t intimidate me at all because I have been putting in a lot of work daily. It’s important to have the right skills fighting in the cage it’s not easy so I am excited for this one,” Simbowe said. “The fight will be Law’s first fight in EFC as he just got signed recently but for me, I’m the only experienced Zambian in the organisation.” The fight scheduled to take place at EFC Performance Institute in Cape Town will be Simbowe’s first fight after his defeat to Ilunga last month. He said the defeat to Illunga presented him some lessons on where he needs to improve going into the fight against Law. “The defeat to Rocky was really painful because he was scared to stand with me which made the whole fight boring because I was looking forward to fight him with everything that night but we learned something together with my team. We have been working on the mistakes too so it will be interesting with Law I hope he won’t be scared too like Rocky,” Simbowe said.