IT’S been widely accepted in the boxing community for a while now that for a fighter’s professional debut, the fighter is matched with a ‘gimme’ fight against an experienced opponent that more or less isn’t coming to win.
A small handful of great fighters, essentially ones with a strong amateur pedigree, break this mould and take on quality operators from day one, which is precisely the plan for 2024 Paris Olympian Cindy Ngamba.
The Cameroonian middleweight will be taking on EBU European welterweight champion Kirstie Bavington to open her account, on the all-female undercard of Natasha Jonas vs Lauren Price at the Royal Albert Hall.
Eight two-minute rounds are scheduled at Ngamba’s native middleweight division, the same division where she picked up her medal last summer.
At the age of 26, the debutant has already made history in several ways, becoming the first boxer from the Refugee Olympic Team to qualify for the Olympics, and then picking up the refugee team’s first ever medal in the form of bronze at Paris.
But with a style that she has admitted is suited to the pro game, it’s no doubt she will look to achieve all that she can in this second portion of her boxing career.
Bavington, meanwhile, comes into this fight at 32, having had a very impressive career of her own with two defences of her European title and a respectable total of nine wins.
Losses in her career have come only to quality operators such as Sandy Ryan, Lauren Price and Cherrelle Brown, having already fought for the British and WBC International belts unsuccessfully in her career.
Still, linking up with her amateur coach in Rob McCracken at Team GB, Ngamba is yet to be nicknamed but has described herself as one in a hundred million, in reference to being just one of the hundred million refugees worldwide, that she proudly represented on the international stage.
Kirstie Bavington vs. Cindy Ngamba Fight Prediction
Despite the European champion coming into this fight as the more seasoned professional, I expect the younger, faster, stronger Olympian to be too much of all of those things in abundance, younger and faster, and much stronger with ‘Bavvo’ coming up in weight to the 160 lb division.
It is difficult to accurately determine how comfortable or difficult a fight it will be for Ngamba, with no evidence of the fighter in a professional setting. Still, I predict a unanimous decision victory over the eight rounds.
Bavington is a strong and determined opponent who has gone the distance against every opponent she has lost to. A stoppage victory for Cindy would be an immense statement of intent to the rest of the division.
BN note: A statement was published just under two hours after this article went online which revealed Ngamba will not be making her pro debut on Friday following a pre-fight medical examination.
