NZ title for Palmerston North fighter

Palmerston North Muay Thai fighter Hendrick Mutale shouldn’t struggle to get fights any more.

Mutale, who fights out of Fight Shop NZ, won the New Zealand WKBF featherweight title in Porirua last weekend, his first title win, beating Luca Young from Wellington by unanimous decision.

Mutale, 35, has been fighting for more than 12 years, but because of his weight, which sits between 56 and 58 kilograms, he struggles to find people in his weight class to fight. Usually he is having to face people heavier than he is.

‘‘The biggest hurdle I would come up against was my weight. Because I’m a lot smaller the issue was getting fights for my weight.

‘‘I was lucky I would get one of two fights in a year. I would go a couple of years before fighting. If I did score one I was always giving up a lot of weight.’’

Many of the people he would face would be 62-63kg and they were cutting to get down to that.

Mutale tried bulking up, but it didn’t really work, because the weight would come off him when he trained, so now he’s settled into his own rhythm.

‘‘We just try and get as many fights as we can.’’

He said now the sport was becoming more well known, more people were coming into his weight grade, which meant there were more options for fights.

It was his first title fight, but the second time he has fought Young, having won on a split decision in a bout last year.

Mutale said the result could have gone either way last time, but there was no doubt over who won this fight.

‘‘It was pretty surreal. I’m still pretty much on a high.

‘‘There was a lot of prep that went into getting ready for that fight.’’

Training for this fight had been ‘‘gruesome’’.

It was originally scheduled for September, but it got pushed out because of the Covid-19 lockdown in August.

It meant Mutale had last fought in March before this matchup.

After the March bout, which cemented his title shot, he had a break, then started training in July.

The lockdown interrupted things so once Covid-19 restrictions eased, he was putting in big training sessions six days a week.

Now he’s ticked off one of his goals by winning a title, he would love to compete in a King in the Ring kickboxing event or add to his WKBF title.

‘‘There’s other titles and I would like the set.’’

He planned to have a break then would look to get back into things after Christmas.