MANDONGA: Meet The Mouthy, Masterful and Menacing Tanzanian Boxer

Not since the glorified days of mythical boxing ace Mohammed Ali have we seen a boxer so engrossed in his own idealism, his own illusory fantasy and his own untamed ruthlessness.

When Karim Mandonga 'Mtu Kazi' announced that he would be travelling to Nairobi for a bout, few doubted his ability to mercilessly annihilate his opponent. He had given us all the reasons to trust his pugilism.

His announcement was packed with all things flowery - a bombastic speech, a bucketful of idioms, a ton of hilarious colloquialisms and a spray of sheer abrasiveness.

Mandonga has invented the perfect alchemy needed to excite the masses, instil mortal fear in his rivals, hog the headlines and rattle the streets.

Not one to be simply comfortable in his birth name, Mandonga invented a ton of witty nicknames for himself - and his fists - as if to help bolster his cause and cement his place as the ungovernable prima donna of the boxing world.

'Mtu Kazi' is as straightforward as it is ominous.

Even when it was obvious he would lose a fight, his eyes flamed and his wit remained as sharp as the punches with which he viciously tormented almost all of his opponents.

In Tanzania, Mandonga became a press darling - he had a way with words, enthralling the media as he concocted scenarios and used clever catchphrases which not only lit up the internet but also made him a living meme across East Africa.

His gauche press conferences, which often see him valiantly swing around his right fist, comically named 'Sugunyo', have become such an impenetrable construct of Mandonga that, without them, fans will simply not turn up for the match.

Mandonga knows that boxing is more than just throwing a punch - it's the art of trash talk, the art of pomposity and the art of caricature.

His arrival in Nairobi was as chaotic as it was enrapturing. At Gikomba, he waltzed down the narrow pathways, as a frenzied crowd of fans tagged along, shirtless, taunting his rival and throwing around indecipherable words.

Many who were not familiar with this visiting boxer's belligerence quickly rushed to Google him, only to stumble onto an old video of him ignominiously hammering his Tanzanian rival Said Mbelwa by knocking him out dry using the infamous 'ngumi ya ndoinge'.

"Nina ngumi inaitwa ndoige, hii ngumi ndoige ni ngumi ya kigeni. Ambayo ngumi hiyo, ukikaa kushoto Mbelwa unakutana nayo, ukikaa kulia unakutana nayo. Ni ngumi ambayo inakunja kona. Ngumi inatumwa kama parapanda, ngumi haimuwachi mtu salama...", he had previously said in a hilarity-packed press conference.

While Mandonga was crisscrossing the city, ruffling feathers and attracting local YouTubers like flies to a heap of garbage, his Kenyan rival Daniel Wanyonyi, a languid Gikomba trader, remained in the back shadows. Even on days when he should have been hogging the limelight, he would be found at his Gikomba stall, of all places, hawking clothes.

At KICC, Mandonga made a euphoric entry, as he posed for photos with top Nairobi honchos, exchanged banter with Lang'ata MP Jalang'o, acknowledged cheers from a packed audience and decimated his rival in a bewitching match that sizzled Twitter and won him tons of avid fans.

After a nail-biting bout that could have easily gone the other way, Mandonga, who was fighting in a foreign country for the first time, was declared a winner on a technical knockout after flooring a flustered Wanyonyi, who remained seated at his corner when the sixth round bell sounded.

True to character, the sweaty pugilist dove into the sea of flashing cameras, talked even bigger and promised more thunder in a couple of months.

“Mdomo ni ya kupiga promo, nikiingia ulingo iko nafasi ya ngumi,” he rambunctiously said.

“Narudi tena Nairobi, Kenya hii Aprili ‘kumzika mtu’, raundi ya kwanza kaburi lake liko wapi? Muwekeni pale! Nitakuja na ngumi nyingine, sio Sugunyo tena.”

A hysterical egoist, Mandonga, like Mohammed Ali before him, has mastered the inscrutable art of using words, flashiness and novel sloganeering to claim victory even before he had it and riveting his fans on the promise of bigger - and messier - battles to come.

A bombastic mouthpiece for boxing, Mandonga's prodigious charisma has permeated every sphere of the Kenyan psyche.

On Twitter, Ferdinand Omondi, a senior reporter and producer at BBC Africa, said, "What Mandonga is doing is the showbiz Eric Omondi is talks. But some Kenyan 'celebz' think showbiz means fakery and senseless clout chasing."

He added, "Mandonga reminds me of Prime Conjestina and her "fikeni mapema" catch-phrase. At some point when she started losing too much, her fans changed it to "fikeni mapema nipigwe mapema". Either way, when Conjestina had a fight, they paid to watch her."

Although not as innately menacing as some of his rivals, Mandonga's theatrical route towards intimidation and barefaced self-promotion has seen him liven up matches that would otherwise go unnoticed.

Mandonga's boxing ring legerdemain has won him praise and admirers from the hoi polloi to the moneyed barons in high places. In Tanzania, a local businessman simply known as Dick Sound was so impressed that he gifted the myth-making boxer a brand new Toyota Nadia for his Nairobi exploits.

In the ring, he levitates, he glides, he soars and he punches.

After all, is said and done, a sweat-dripping Mandonga emerges victorious, arms held high, chest puffed-up, belt slinging off his shoulder and eyes piercing into your soul.

Even in defeat, his insouciance looms large.

Mandonga may not yet have his 'Thriller in Manilla' or 'Rumble in the Jungle' but if he keeps up with the stunts, the brevity, the sleek talk and the brazenness, he might well bequeath his fans with a once-in-a-lifetime ringside showdown.