Sumbu Kalambay

Sumbu Kalambay
Data
Birth Name	Sumbu Kalambay
Weight class	medium weight
nationality	Congolese - Italian
birthday	April 10, 1956
place of birth	Lubumbashi
style	Left delivery
size	1.77 m
Combat Statistics
Struggles	64
Victories	57
Knockout victories	33
Defeats	6th
draw	1

Sumbu "Patrizio" Kalambay (born April 10, 1956 in Lubumbashi , Zaire, now the Democratic Republic of the Congo ) is a former Italian boxer of Congolese origin.

Career

Kalambay played as an amateur 95 fights with 90 wins and five losses. In 1980 he turned professional in Italy. He lost his third professional fight on points, in the fourth he boxed only a draw. Then he managed a series of 32 victories in a row until 1985 until he lost in the USA to the later WBC title holder Duane Thomas.

In December of the same year he lost a European championship fight against southpaw Ayub Kalule on points, both of which were on the ground.

But in the second attempt in May 1987, the clearly favored English southpaw Herol Graham , who had also knocked out Kalule, was unbeaten in 38 fights and wrested the European title away from home.

In his next fight, he boxed on October 23, 1987 against Iran Barkley for the vacant WBA World Championship and won the title over 15 rounds on points.

In his first title defense, he sensationally beat the undefeated light middleweight star Mike McCallum .

After two more victories, he was stripped of his world championship belt at the green table and he traveled to the USA to challenge Michael Nunn , again a southpaw, for the IBF crown. The more average powerful Nunn was at the peak of his performance and managed to surprise Kalambay with the "KO of the year" (according to Ring Magazine ) in the first round.

In 1990 he won again the European Championship, which he defended several times in the following years, including in a renewed duel against Herol Graham (very controversial victory in Italy) and the Irish Steve Collins . In the rematch against McCallum for the WBA title, he lost in Monaco in April 1991 on points.

After a knockout loss to Chris Pyatt in 1993 in the fight for the WBO title, he ended his career. Today he is Paolo Vidoz's trainer .

Web links

• Sumbu Kalambay in the BoxRec database