Calven ‘The Butcher’ Robinson has been forced to withdraw from the EFC AFRICA 09 card due to injury. Andrew van Zyl has stepped in to take his place against Bernardo Mikixi for the heavyweight bout on 30 June. Fortunately, van Zyl was already in training for the event, awaiting an opponent to be confirmed, and he jumped at the chance to take on the well-respected Mikixi. Robinson is out of action for a minimum of six weeks but at this stage the severity of his injury is unknown.

“This hernia is actually an old injury that I picked up in the fight against Mark Bristow last year,” said Robinson. “After I won that fight I had to be rushed for an emergency operation. Now I’ve torn it again, it was my own fault for going back into training too hard, too soon, but that’s invariably the nature of the game with us fighters. I’ve been advised not to do anything strenuous for at least six weeks, which rules out MMA training, and I need to go for a scan to determine how bad the tear is. Hopefully this isn’t too serious. I was very excited to get back to EFC AFRICA because I was feeling so fit and strong! I wish Bernardo and Andrew a good fight. It could go either way, they’re both strong competitors and I hope they decide to stand and slug it out!”