On a rainy day in East London, in South Africa’s Eastern Cape province, boxing legend Vuyani Bungu is at the Downtown Boxing Gym. Always wearing a charismatic smile on his face, he looks around the walls covered with pictures of local boxing greats; he spots a photo of himself posing with his entourage, holding a trophy. Bungu looks long and hard and says “the good old days”.
The contrast is as bleak as this winter’s day. Bungu’s best day was 16 years ago on a spring day in London. Bright lights shone that night and over 10,000 Londoners were cheering, some jeering, inside the Olympia London. With all the pre-match hype, viewers were glued to their screens around the world. “Viva Bungu Viva!” praised traditional poet Zolani Mkiva, who had flown in from the Eastern Cape as Bungu entered the ring after a year and a half on the sidelines. Outside the ring, Londoners greeted him with hostility.
In the blink of an eye the atmosphere came to life; Londoners shouted “Naseem! Naseem!” as the defending champion ‘Prince’ Naseem Hamed hovered over the crowd on a leopard-print magic carpet on wires. He was welcomed by Puff Daddy, as the hip hop artist was then known, as he landed ringside; that’s as cool as it gets. The bell rang, Bungu fought with his famous slouch stance connecting with infrequent punches that were no match for Hamed’s reflexes. A powerful left jab from Hamed sent Bungu to the canvas and referee Joe Cortez stopped the fight in the fourth round. Bungu’s eight-year unbeaten run was over.
“Naseem caught me, never in the history of my boxing career had I been knocked out and not known where I was,” says Bungu.
For Bungu the fight was a painful end to a painful dance with his promoter as he reached the peak of his career.
“I sat for a year and a half not getting fights, you know promoters work in different ways, and then I got a chance to fight Paul Ingle for the IBF featherweight title in 2000,” he says.
While preparing for a fight with Ingle, his promoter Rodney Berman had negotiations with Hamed’s camp for a fight. Hamed’s representatives agreed, and replaced Ingle with their fighter.
“There was talk of fighting Naseem while I was still active, bear in mind in 2000 I was getting old and spent a year and a half not fighting. I got the fight; they fired my trainer and said he was drinking a lot,” says Bungu. “I knew very well the reason behind that but unfortunately I cannot dwell on it. I don’t want to go deep but it was not because he was drinking. Sometimes, these days, people sue you.”
Bungu says he wasn’t measured for the kit he wore for the Hamed fight. He kept quiet even as he couldn’t wear a protector because it didn’t fit his tight pants.
“That fight turned me off. I just went there because everything was already done,” says Bungu.
“Things went bad after the Naseem fight, you know when you come from a poor background like mine, in those particular years, I knew nothing about tax and the taxman caught me. I nearly lost everything. That’s when my marriage started to break. Tax caught me and took everything,” says Bungu.
Manager and trainer Mzimasi ‘Bra Mzi’ Mnguni had been with Bungu all his fighting life. He was at the iconic Sisa Dukashe stadium in Bungu’s hometown of Mdantsane when the boxer got his first professional fight and was nicknamed ‘The Beast’ by the crowd after they were reminded of the powerful punches of Ugandan John Mugabi who went by the same moniker.
With affection and respect, Bungu frequently refers to his mentor as ‘Bra Mzi’. However, Bungu was disappointed by Mnguni’s handling of his finances. Mnguni signed the deals while Bungu focused on his punches.
“When you don’t know something, and the people who are supposed to be telling you something are not willing to tell you, you feel like you are alone in a cage, they just leave you there. Though I don’t blame anyone, life goes on. I felt betrayed by them anyway,” says Bungu.
He never argued with the money that was put on his table after a fight. Bungu, with a record 13 IBF super bantamweight title defences, was never present during negotiations for a match. According to reports, he owed the taxman R900,000 ($67,000). Although he paid an accountant R20,000 ($1,500) to get him out of trouble, he was alone.
“People thought I was making millions, I never saw a million in my career. From my defences, if I can tell you I had R500,000 in my pocket I would be lying to you. That’s how boxing is, that’s the bad side of boxing.”
“After a fight, I would have R400,000, then deductions poured in, I was left with R200,000. Then you would hear sayings that there were no sponsors for a fight and all that, there were lot of excuses and I could not argue with them because it’s an area that I don’t know,” says Bungu.
Mnguni, however, says he always tried to get the best deal for Bungu.
“I paid [my fighters] according to the rates of South Africa, but once they got to international stages, I didn’t promote them. The only thing I did was negotiate on their behalf. I believe I tried to get the best for them,” says Mnguni.
In the gym, Bungu throws a few punches in the air and immediately catches his breath. Still wearing his charismatic smile, he gazes into the distance.
It all started in 1992 when stablemate and friend, Welcome Ncita, lost his IBF world title to American Kennedy McKinney and lost again in a rematch in 1994 in Texas. While in Texas, Ncita and Bungu, who was campaigning for fights abroad, were introduced to McKinney by their trainer. To Bungu’s astonishment, McKinney was helplessly drunk.
“I had a small prayer to myself and said, you know what God, we’re poor in South Africa, we can’t fall prey to someone who is wasting his talent, if one day I could get a chance to fight this guy, I would beat him,” recalls Bungu.
Four months later, Bungu received international recognition when he beat McKinney with a unanimous decision to win the international bantamweight title. The match was described by The Ring magazine as “the upset of the year”. Bungu received a call from South Africa’s newly-elected democratic president Nelson Mandela to mark the fact that he was the first boxing champion of a free South Africa.
“He wanted to see me, I couldn’t believe it. He said I am an asset of this country, that’s why I went on defending the title for this country 13 times,” says Bungu.
It all fell apart after the fight with Hamed in London. The next two years were spent without a fight, he divorced, and was in financial arrears; the beast was on its knees. Bungu’s last fight was in 2005 against Thomas Mashaba, in a tournament staged by Mnguni. He lost on points and decided it was a cue for him to bow out.
“I knew very well they were kicking me out of boxing, for me that was it. It was hard quitting because the people who you thought had your back weren’t on your side anymore. [My] manager and promoter just turned their back on me,” says Bungu.
Ncita was welcomed by scores of supporters in his hometown of East London when he became the first boxer from the Eastern Cape to win a world title. Ncita suffered the same treatment from his manager and promoter as Bungu.
“Their focus is to make as much money as they can and when your career is fading, they use someone else to make money. They don’t teach you to save it,” says Ncita
For Ncita, this all culminated before the McKinney fight.
“What happened there before the journey to that fight, it made me not be there psychologically. Physically I was ready for the fight, but psychologically I was not myself. I already took a decision before the fight, I told myself I am done with boxing,” says Ncita.
Mnguni says that Bungu and Ncita can only blame themselves for their financial difficulties.
“I used to say to both of them, if you were workers you would get this kind of money when you are 60 years old, but you guys get it at 25. I said they should give it to investors. To them it was like they should use it today, but it was for the next 40 years. To them it was like it is the end of the world.”
At some point, Ncita owned a Steers fast food franchise but financial difficulties forced him to sell after eight years.
In a quiet neighborhood in Rosebank, Johannesburg, Golden Gloves promoter Rodney Berman enjoys a strong cup of coffee in his office painted with boxing greats from Mdantsane, including Bungu and Ncita.
“In my 39-year boxing history, my two favorite fighters of all time are Welcome Ncita and Vuyani Bungu, not just because of their boxing ability but because of their humbleness,” says Berman.
With confidence, he states his partnership with Mnguni is the most successful in South Africa. He constantly gives credit to Mnguni for handling Bungu’s fight with Hamed. Berman says he never signed a written contract with Mnguni because their relationship is built on trust. He says had Bungu won the fight with Hamed, life would have been rosy for the boxer.
“Vuyani froze that night, if he had beaten Hamed he would have been the hottest property in world boxing,” says Berman.
He confirms the purse Bungu received after the fight was R2.5 million (around $190,000) and says he was convinced Bungu would have won the fight. Berman says he was never aware of the problems Bungu faced and he is unaware of the real reason his personal trainer Terry ‘Baba’ Stotts was fired.
“Nobody ever came to me and said ‘Rodney, I have these problems.’ I was never aware of anything,” says Berman.
“Vuyani was just a too nice a person, if you look at it logically he should have phoned me and said ‘Rodney I like Baba Stotts, this is the man I want to train me, I don’t want him fired’. Then it would have ended the whole story.”
Berman says he was aware of the financial difficulties Ncita and Bungu faced after they retired but refuses to believe Mnguni could steal money from his boxers.
“To bring up this stuff now against Mzi is a bit unfair, the right time to do it was when it was happening,” says Berman.
According to Berman, both boxers are using Mnguni as a scapegoat. He believes they blew their fortunes.
“I told them to invest their money and Welcome did it. Two minutes after Welcome invested, he came back and took it all out; they never tell you that side of the story.”
“Ask Vuyani how many times I begged him to let me help him invest his money,” says Berman
The estimated purse Bungu made from his title defences is R6 million (around $500,000) with all the necessary deductions.
Nothing is as hard as the road to the top. In 2012, Bungu and Ncita teamed up as promoters to assist emerging boxers from the Eastern Cape. Many saw this as a rivalry to their mentor Mnguni, and to add insult to injury, Berman is their ally.
Both Bungu and Ncita are based in East London trying to make the millions that slipped away. Bungu is a happily-married motivational speaker. He gives advice to the youngsters of Mdantsane as well as current boxers; cautioning them of the flaws he faced. Former IBF international bantamweight champion, and Mdantsane-born, Zolani Tete has embraced the advice given to him by the veterans.
“People like Vuyani used to say they don’t want what happened to them happen to us. He usually says what hit him the most was not paying tax. Today, before even receiving your cheque, you know you have to pay tax,” says Tete.
Both Hamed and McKinney have suffered the same straightened circumstances as the African boxers they fought. Hamed has doubled in weight since the fight in 2000 and is unrecognizable when he walks along the streets of London. He has also been in the news for the wrong reasons since his early retirement.
In 2006, Hamed was involved in a high-speed car crash that left the other motorist seriously injured, resulting in Hamed serving 16 weeks in jail and receiving a four-year driving ban. Meanwhile, McKinney is a boxing trainer in his hometown of Mississippi.
Sadly, Mnguni is ill after a car crash in November 2013 and a stroke in March 2014 that left him paralysed from the waist down and confined to a wheelchair. His gymnasium, Eyethu, which produced many world champions, is struggling.
Life after the ring has been difficult for everyone.