Seven-year-old Simthandile ‘Sim Tiger’ Tshabalala already has the golfing world at his feet.



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South African golf legend Gary Player believes the country
has the potential to produce the next Tiger Woods, a superstar with charisma and
global appeal that will win major titles and become a role model to millions
around the world.



Player told FORBES AFRICA late last year he was “convinced
there is a black girl or boy in South Africa today with tremendous athletic
prowess, and with the talent to be a champion”.



Player’s prophecy could come true sooner than, perhaps even, he expects, with the emergence of seven-year-old Simthandile ‘Sim Tiger’ Tshabalala, a youngster that has shown such outstanding talent on the golf course that the world has sat up to take notice.



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Tshabalala, who learned the game from YouTube videos and has
only been professionally coached for the last few years, has already played at
the Australian Open, where he came fourth, has played in Malaysia and Scotland,
and won the local US Kids Tour this year.



He will soon be jetting off to the United States, England
and Canada for more events in the coming month, fueling his passion to one day
emulate, and then surpass, his hero.



“It’s going very well, it’s very exciting for me,” Tshabalala tells FORBES AFRICA. “I really look up to Tiger Woods, he was number one in the world for so long.



<div class="wp-block-image"><figure class="aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="299" height="482" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Sim3.png" alt="" class="wp-image-41477" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Sim3.png 299w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Sim3-186x300.png 186w" sizes="(max-width: 299px) 100vw, 299px" /><figcaption> Seven-year-old Simthandile ‘Sim Tiger’ Tshabalala. Picture Supplied</figcaption></figure></div>



“He won so many tournaments and, just like me, he started playing at such a young age. He carried that through to his adult life and became a legend.”



The way Tshabalala talks; he is seven going on 17, such is
the maturity with which he answers questions.



Clearly, an exceptionally talented, and level-headed child,
he has the golfing world at his feet.



His father, Bonginkosi Tshabalala, admits his son’s success
has taken him rather by surprise, but he is determined to make sure all avenues
are open for the youngster.



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“I grew up with an absent father, with no male guidance or exposure to many things, so it’s very important for me to be able to provide this platform for Sim. I want him to have a better life than me,” Tshabalala senior says.



The young Sim tried just about every sport going, but none
stuck until he picked up a golf club.



“From the age of two, we have tried all sports – tennis,
swimming, cricket, soccer and finally golf,” his father says.



“I must admit I did not even know what a golf course looked
like. 



<div class="wp-block-image"><figure class="aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="301" height="536" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Sim2.png" alt="" class="wp-image-41478" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Sim2.png 301w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Sim2-300x534.png 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Sim2-168x300.png 168w" sizes="(max-width: 301px) 100vw, 301px" /><figcaption> Seven-year-old Simthandile ‘Sim Tiger’ Tshabalala holds the South African flag up high. Picture: Supplied</figcaption></figure></div>



“I had no clue about the rules of the game, but I thought I
had to teach myself first, then I could pass that on to Sim.



“So I bought some clubs, and the two of us would sit and watch YouTube videos with coaching tips and the like, trying to learn the game.



“We had been going to the driving range together and he was really enjoying it, so I decided to get him formal coaching.”



But Tshabalala senior, who is also his son’s caddy, says it
is not enough and they put in hours and hours of practice together each week.



“If you give him a fork to eat with, he will use it to
practise his swing. The first thing he does in the morning when he gets out of
bed is practice his swing. He is amazingly committed to the game.”



<div class="wp-block-image"><figure class="aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="301" height="516" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Sim5.png" alt="" class="wp-image-41480" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Sim5.png 301w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Sim5-300x514.png 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Sim5-175x300.png 175w" sizes="(max-width: 301px) 100vw, 301px" /><figcaption> Seven-year-old Simthandile ‘Sim Tiger’ Tshabalala on the gold course. Picture: Supplied</figcaption></figure></div>



Such is his promise that ‘Sim Tiger’ has already secured a
sponsorship from top global golf equipment manufacturer, TaylorMade, but for
the rest, his increasingly expensive career is being funded by his father.



“We will be at the World Championships in North Carolina from August 1 to 3. Then we travel to England for the British Kids Championship on August 8 and 9, and from there, we play the 2019 Canadian Invitational on August 12 to 13. 



“It is obviously very expensive, and we are looking for
sponsorship, but at the same time, it is an amazing experience. 



“When we went to Malaysia, it was the first time, I had
never been outside of South Africa, so we have grown together as a family.”



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For Tshabalala senior, this journey is much more than golf
and travel, it is a chance for him to spend time with his son, perhaps healing
some of those old wounds that linger from his father not providing him with the
same support. 



“Whatever happens in the future, it has brought us closer, and hopefully, he has learned some life lessons along the way,” he says.



<div class="wp-block-image"><figure class="aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="300" height="379" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Sim4.png" alt="" class="wp-image-41479" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Sim4.png 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Sim4-237x300.png 237w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" /><figcaption> Seven-year-old Simthandile ‘Sim Tiger’ Tshabalala. Picture: Supplied</figcaption></figure></div>

sim1

Grass Gets Greener For Young South African Golfing Wonder

At dusk on this warm evening, Phillip ‘The Time Bomb’ Ndou was ready to go off.  In a red gown with white flowing frills, he felt like a king. He danced his way to the ring with the chutzpah of a boxer at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. But this was Thohoyandou, in rural Limpopo, in South Africa, 500 kilometers north of Johannesburg and a million miles from the rest of the world. Through a cacophony of ululations and chants in Tshivenda, Ndou stepped into the ring for the first time in his hometown after a lifetime as a professional.
Boxing fans journeyed from Johannesburg for this fight that is in the heart of the Venda people. People from these parts are accustomed to a different type of boxing, called musangwe, hosted by the Venda king in Gaba Village, near Thohoyandou, every December. Musangwe is tough bare-knuckle boxing with no weigh-in restrictions. This is where Ndou landed his first punch as a young boy growing up in Golgotha Section, a few kilometers from Thohoyandou.
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“I have always wanted to fight at home but that never happened for almost 20 years. My manager and promoter, Promise [Moyo], made it possible for me to live my dream,”
says Ndou.
Moyo, a civil servant for 15 years, is now the director of Skylon Promotions that promotes Ndou and four other professional boxers.
“Here is the man with 40 fights but he never fought in front of his people as a professional. His mother, Margaret Nemukula, couldn’t believe it was really happening since there had been many speculations that Phillip is fighting at home but those ended up in disappointments,” says Moyo.
When it happened, it was worth it. The 38-year-old former South African WBA and international WBC junior lightweight champion sent the crowd into a frenzy, at Thohoyandou Town Hall, as he knocked down the Tanzanian slugger, Ramadhani Shauri, in the fourth round. Referee Grace Mahosi ended the eight-round bout when Ndou floored the 23-year-old Shauri for the second time, seconds later. All night, the visitor showed scant respect for Ndou. Against Ndou’s fervent supporters, Shauri had only his trainer Yassin Abaallaa and stablemate Lulu Kayage, a female fighter who won earlier against Lillian Mphahlele, for company.
On August 9, Women’s Day in South Africa to remember a march on parliament in 1956, Ndou’s win was a fitting celebration for his mother. She was in the crowd, with other women from their village. They dressed in colorful Venda traditional clothing to watch their son fighting at home for the first time.
It was a journey that led him in a wide circle. Ndou turned professional after boxing at the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games, where he lost to Somluck Kamsing of Thailand, who won gold.
Another world title-holder, Ledwaba was in his corner. Ledwaba lost his IBF bantamweight belt to Manny Pacquiao, who stood in as a last minute replacement.
“It was not an easy fight, Ramadhani can crack… I didn’t struggle, but I didn&#8217;t know him so I had to read him first. I know my people don&#8217;t want to see me standing on the ropes, but when I&#8217;m on the ropes I&#8217;m more dangerous. From here, I am challenging for the IBF title. I want to say thank you very much to mothers, to the fans, to my promoter,” says Ndou.
This was Ndou’s fifth win on the trot. He is the only African to have fought undefeated world champion Floyd Mayweather. He lost to Mayweather in 2003, at Grand Rapids in Michigan, in the United States. That night, Ndou was ill advised by his trainer Nick Durandt that Mayweather was a coward who would run if hit.
This has been a long comeback from a brain injury Ndou sustained in 2004. It was so bad that a doctor, and Durandt, advised him to stop boxing. In 2009, Ndou was back, knocking out a Frenchman Rachid Drilzane in France. He lost to his cousin, Lovemore Ndou, who is now based in Australia, a few months later in Johannesburg.
Back in Thohoyandou, Abaallaa says his boxer’s loss was down to a lucky punch. He commended Ndou’s experience in surviving Ramadhani’s barrage of punches.
“I would like a rematch because I believe Ndou used his experience to win, he was out-performed – he is not a good boxer that can make us fear him, there’s nothing left in him&#8230; you were all quiet from round one to the third. But the lucky punch in the fourth round changed the course of the fight,” says Abaallaa.
But Abaallaa’s wish is unlikely. Ndou has set his sights on the International Boxing Federation Continental African title against Kenyan James Onyango Omogo, in December. Omogo is three years younger than Ndou and has battled through 30 fights.
Ndou may have danced into the ring, but he took many head and body blows from the youthful Ramadhani that he couldn’t dodge, at times he looked his age and a bit slow.
It’s been 12 years and scores of grueling fights since Ndou and Mayweather traded blows in Michigan. They have one thing in common. They both think they have one fight left in their wobbly legs.
Theirs is a story of how cruel the fight game is. Mayweather cruises through life on his millions, Ndou scrapes by at Thohoyandou Town Hall for his next pay check. It’s hard to believe they were both up and coming princes who once shared the same ring.

The Hero  Who Danced With Mayweather And Death Returns Home

When Moruti Mthalane started boxing as an amateur at the age of 13, he always showed commitment and was destined for bigger things.
‘Baby Face’, as he is affectionately known, is from a family of seven that is heavily involved in boxing. His father, Michael, used to train him and his older brother, Innocent, was a national champion. He grew up in Durban, in the KwaZulu Natal province, and just like most kids in his neighborhood he was an avid football fan and supported Orlando Pirates. However, his passion for boxing took over and he is now the current IBO flyweight champion and former IBF flyweight champion.
<div id="attachment_3749" style="width: 210px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-3749" class="size-medium wp-image-3749" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/121706512-200x300.jpg" alt="" width="200" height="300" />RUSTENBURG, SOUTH AFRICA &#8211; AUGUST 21: Aaron Mokoena and Baby Jake Matlala during the SA Sports Awards from Sun City Superbowl on August 21, 2011 in Rustenburg, South Africa. (Photo by Frennie Shivambu/Gallo Images/Getty Images)</div>
“Sport has always been part of my life. I remember back in the days as a youngster I used to play soccer with other kids in Durban. I preferred to be around the brilliant players who were capable of dribbling and scoring goals. Pirates were my favorite team and I used to admire Steve Lekoelea because he was such an exciting player, a good passer of the ball and he used to create scoring opportunities. However my passion for boxing took control and I concentrated on spending more of my time in the ring,” he says.
“I have always been focused as a boxer and I had ambition to make it to the top level. I was confident that I would make it because whenever I went to the gym I gave my best.”
When Mthalane turned professional at the age of 19, he realized he had to take his boxing more seriously. Throughout his career, he has had many tough bouts and fought all over the world. Now, at the age of 32, he feels there is still a lot he can offer in the ring. One of Mthalane’s biggest highlights was when he won the IBF world flyweight title against Julio Miranda of Mexico in 2009.
“I always make sure that I prepare well for my fights. I respect my job as a professional boxer and I arrive on time at the gym. It is very important to work hard in the gym and give all the necessary effort in whatever I do. I have the winning mentality and I am always determined to give everything that I can against whoever I face. I like to attack, even when it is tough in the ring. I just need to remain optimistic that I can do it. My victory against Julio Miranda was fantastic, I was very happy with my achievement when I won, you could just see the way how I celebrated that it really meant a lot to me.”
He has not looked back since that fight and feels that under his manager and trainer, Nick Durandt, his reign as a world champion will continue.
“It is good that I am working with Durandt as my trainer because he is the best. He has always guided me well when we are preparing for the fight. I have been working with Nick for a very long time and we have had a very good relationship,” he says.
Mthalane was stripped of his IBF belt when he pulled out of his mandatory defence against Thailand’s Amnat Ruenroeng last year. That fight was set to earn him R120,000. He was instead offered R1 million to fight Filipino Jether Oliva for the vacant IBO title – he won the fight and has since defended the title.
<div id="attachment_3748" style="width: 175px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-3748" class="size-medium wp-image-3748" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/000044455-165x300.jpg" alt="" width="165" height="300" />October 2006. 40-year-old South African boxer Dingaan Thobela, &#8220;The Rose of Soweto&#8221;, makes his comeback in the boxing ring later this month in Johannesburg. Feature text available.</div>
Mthalane is inspired by the likes of Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao, who recently fought in the highest-paid boxing match the sport has ever seen. What does the South African think of the huge sums these superstars were paid?
“It is very encouraging when some top boxers in the world get paid well. It is very good for the sport.”
“I have always been interested in watching other top boxers around the world. I used to enjoy watching the heavyweights, the likes of Riddick Bowe, Mike Tyson, Lennox Lewis and Evander Holyfield. Whenever there was a big heavyweight fight, I woke up early in the morning to watch the fight. I really enjoyed watching Bowe, his style really impressed me.”
Though he is disappointed that boxing does not get the television coverage it deserves in South Africa, Mthalane is determined to emulate past South African heroes such as ‘Baby Jake’ Matlala and Dingaan Thobela.
“Here in South Africa we have also produced many top professional boxers. I admired the late Baby Jake’s fighting style. He was very short but he used to give the taller fighters a tough time. It was really exciting watching him fight, his movements in the ring and the way he used to throw punches impressed me. There is a lot that I gained and learned from watching how him fight. I am the type of fighter that likes to attack. Even when it is really tough in the ring, I am always determined to give my best.”
Many boxers around the world have fallen victim to bankruptcy when their careers come to an end. Most did not make wise decisions with the money they earned. However, it seems to be a different story with Mthalane.
He is aware that boxing careers are short and has invested his money while he is earning it. Many up and coming boxers look up to him and he is always prepared to give them advice.
“I am so thankful that I got an opportunity to be a professional boxer and through what I earn I am able to look after myself well.”
“I believe I will still have a good life after I retire from boxing because I am not just thinking about now. I have invested a lot for my future. I live a clean lifestyle and I always make sure that I hang around the good people. It is very important for youngsters to follow their dreams and do the right things in life. Discipline is very important in boxing. One has to be focused inside and outside the ring. I encourage the young boxers to be very committed and work very hard in the gym. In order to be ready for the fight, one has to take the right steps during the preparations,” he says.
Mthalane is a religious man and a huge R&amp;B fan. In his downtime he listens to R. Kelly and Brandy.
He has proven his worth in the ring and is determined that there is a lot more he can offer. It is now up to boxing administrators and promoters to ensure that boxing is followed by millions in Africa and the boxers get rewarded for their hard work.

The Baby-Faced Assassin

A few weeks before Floyd Mayweather swaggered into the ring in Las Vegas, a forgotten centenary slipped by that lends context to the struggle of the black man.
On April 5, 1915, the first ever black heavyweight champion of the world lost his title after 26 brutal rounds at a racetrack in Havana, Cuba. It was the end of a remarkable story of pride, skill and refusal to back down in the face of cruel and repulsive racism. Each of his stirring fights was punctuated by a torrent of vile abuse – mostly in the United States, the self-proclaimed land of the free – that would have made a neo-Nazi blush.
They called Jack Johnson, the son of a slave from Texas, the Galveston Giant, for he was every inch so. He was over six foot, with a broad chest that looked chiselled out of mahogany; he bowed for no man and boxed into his 60s. Out of the ring, Johnson was a flamboyant man about town who smoked huge cigars, drank champagne, dressed in the finest suits and drove expensive cars at a time when most of the world was walking.
In the ring, Johnson was a supreme mover and technical genius that few could lay a glove on. He started each fight with beguiling ease, as if he was kidding his opponent to death, in the words of his biographer Geoffrey C. Ward in his book Unforgivable Blackness. As the rounds went by the punching power would grow steadily, with lurking devastating uppercuts that threatened to rip off a boxer’s head.
This was how Johnson won his world title in Sydney, Australia, the day after Christmas in 1908. The fact there was an unofficial color bar in boxing makes the title win ever more remarkable. For two years, Johnson haunted the corner of the heavyweight title holder Canadian Tommy Burns. As corner men towelled Burns down, after another victory, Johnson shouted from ringside that Burns was no champion until he had fought him. Yes, these things happened before Don King was even thought of.
Money twisted the arm of Burns, who said many times he would never fight a black man. Greed and money had always ruled boxing.
Round after round, in Sydney, Burns, who had power but little sense, insulted Johnson’s race and called him a coward as he charged. Johnson smiled and taunted back.
“Poor little Tommy, who told you you were a fighter?” joked Johnson.
“This is what is known as a left hook, Tommy,” before stepping and letting fly with a bone-shuddering left.
In the 14th round, as Johnson hammered Burns to the floor, there came press censorship. Legend has it that the police ordered the camera to stop filming during the knockout. Certainly, the edited footage cuts out the moment when Burns hit the canvas; it was deemed unseemly to show a black man victorious over a white.
Despite this, Johnson landed a resounding blow for the black man in Sydney. Sadly, in the United States (US), angry lynch mobs murdered more than 20 innocent black men, in racial retribution.
Johnson defended his title eight times in six and a half years. The tirade against him grew as the newspapers made a meal of his lavish lifestyle and relationships with white women. The man himself, one of the greatest boxers ever to lace up a pair of gloves, didn’t give a damn.
The great man’s reign also gave rise to the phrase: the ‘great white hope’ for any boxer attempting to wrest the title back from black hands. One of them, former heavyweight champion James J Jeffries, came out of retirement on US Independence Day, July 4, 1910. Trains carried thousands to the fight, in Reno, Nevada, that could have doubled as a Nuremburg rally. Guns weren’t allowed because the organizers thought someone was going to shoot Johnson. The crowd satisfied itself by firing racist insults throughout.
Johnson had the last laugh, pummelling Jeffries to the floor, earning $121,000, in modern money a sum near the amount for the Mayweather fight. He drove to pick up the money, in cash, from a nearby diner on the way home.
The end came in Havana just over 100 years ago. A hard right hand from Jess Willard, the Pottawatomie Giant, in the 26th round knocked Johnson to the canvas. Age, heat and exhaustion had caught up; there were whispers Johnson had thrown the fight for money. Maybe, maybe not?
Either way, Johnson never wore the crown again and his life ended on a sad note of bathos; the Galveston Giant died, aged 67, when his car hit a telegraph pole. He had driven away angrily from a North Carolina diner after yet more discrimination against the color of his skin.
The centenary is maybe time to pause and think. One hundred years on, from Johnson to Mayweather, the world of boxing may have cleaned up its act, but has the world?

The Giant  Who Laughed  In The Face Of Racism

It was a caucus about transformation and we were going to appoint a committee, almost like a task-team, to deal with certain issues. I was the only woman at the meeting and when it came to electing the members, the men started appointing each other. Eventually, one of them realized that they did not have any female members, so they said to me, ‘Come and sit on the panel so we can have a woman.’ I said no.’”
Despite repeated requests from her colleagues, Ntambi Ravele declined adamantly. She made it clear that she would stick to her decision.
“I wasn’t going to be part of something just because I was a woman. Especially because I had experience on my side,” she says.
At the time of the convention, Ravele had served as national co-ordinator for Women and Sport South Africa, represented the country at the International Olympic Committee, chaired the Supreme Council for Sport in South Africa’s zone VI Women and Sport Committee, and won the president’s Sport Administrator of the Year title. She had credentials many people in the room could only dream of and she was not going to allow them to be undermined by a politically-correct, gender-based appointment.
“When those types of things happen, you get to a point where you can’t even feel offended. You can only sit back and laugh.”
Ravele had the last laugh as the team that was set up turned out to be nothing more than a talking shop.
“Nothing ever happened after that,” she says.
But much has happened for Ravele. She has served as president of Netball South Africa in the mid-2000s, during which she obtained a television rights deal with the public broadcaster, the SABC, and corporate sponsorship worth R10 million ($913,000). In April 2013, she got into the boxing ring with BSA. It is her most challenging role yet, but she has already packed a serious punch.
When Ravele was appointed, she identified the most pressing issue in boxing to be that of compliance. Mismanagement, be it from administrators or promoters, resulted in embarrassment. Veteran super middleweight boxer Dingaan ‘The Rose of Soweto’ Thobela had his license revoked because he was over the age limit and did not fight actively for the stipulated period. And Noni Tenge, South Africa’s first female world champion, was stripped of her IBF title for not competing often enough.
“We really needed to clean up the industry. We had to change our image by looking at licenses and payments. We had situations where licenses were not issued properly, others where fighters were not paid within a certain time and fights were being canceled.”
To address these issues, Ravele had to reach a consensus with boxing promoters, whom she met at the National Sports Indaba early in her tenure. She extracted commitments from them that would pay greater attention to playing by the rules.
“We put systems in place and now we have to make sure we work within these systems. Money must be paid within a certain time frame and the promoters must have registered companies that operate properly. For example, they must all have a tax clearance. We will be making sure all these things are abided by,” says Ravele.
Her first step towards reviving South African boxing was to find a common ground regarding television rights for fights. Broadcast deals are one of the largest revenue streams for sports, who controls them has major implications for how the game is run.
During Ngconde Balfour’s tenure, Ravele’s predecessor, BSA had no control over which matches were televised on the public broadcaster and which were sold to pay television.
When boxing promoters Golden Gloves reached an exclusive deal with satellite service SuperSport to broadcast its fights, BSA could do nothing. Similarly, BSA was powerless when the SABC decided it would no longer televise matches.
At the recent Boxing Indaba, all promoters agreed that BSA could negotiate dates with broadcasters for fights. While it does not solve the problem it is a step in the right direction.
Now, BSA will hold discussions with SABC, SuperSport and e.tv to decide which one will commit to showing live matches. Ravele will also discuss SuperSport’s Golden Gloves deal to see if they are willing to adjust the terms when the contact comes up for renewal. Promoters will then bid to have their fights televised on the dates BSA agrees on. She has also guaranteed smaller promoters, who develop boxing by giving unknown fighters a chance, that they will get their fights on air for a minimum fee.
In this way, Ravele hopes that boxing can reach the masses rather than only be accessible to the elite.
“We want to move away from the monopolies and make sure that we have television channels that give us coverage at prime time, so that we can promote the sport,” says Ravele.
Her reasons for wanting more coverage are two-fold. On the one hand, it will be financially beneficial to BSA and everyone involved in the sport, and on the other, her goal is to restore boxing to the prominence it once enjoyed, in terms of results and among its fans.
“We used to have a lot of world champions and we need to get back to that level. At the moment, we are not there. If you think back to the days when Baby Jake Matlala was in his prime, everybody knew who he was.”
Because of the relative anonymity of IBO super middleweight champions Thomas ‘Tommy Gun’ Oosthuizen and junior lightweight title-holder Kaizer Mabuza, South Africans may see boxing as a sport in decline. That is not the case, of the 122 titles that South African male boxers have won, 32 were earned in the last five years.
What is concerning is that many of these titles are with the smaller federations, Ravele vows to change that. She also hopes that female fighters, who are known almost exclusively as Tenge, can start making headlines. Ravele was part of the committee that paved the way for women to participate in boxing in South Africa. Today, she wants to be the driving force behind making champions of the fairer sex.
“South Africa has not been involved in women’s boxing for that long and because it’s quite new, we need to support female boxers and the set-up they work in. At the moment, there are very few women promoters and trainers and we have to create a system where more of them can come through. I’d like to see more women trainers, especially because they understand the challenges facing women in the sport and they allow women to prepare in way that is comfortable for them,” she says.
But what about the challenges Ravele will face as she aims to lift BSA off the ropes and into the center of the boxing ring?
“I have been in the industry for a long time and the only thing I want is to do my job to the best of my ability.”
While she continues fighting to put boxing back on track, after she ends her tenure with the pugilists, she will concentrate on her business and work as a consultant for various sports federations.
“I think I will enjoy that kind of work because people respect me for who I am. In the early days during meetings, some of the men may have expected me to make tea during the breaks or something like that. I never did that and I never will.”

Men Expect Me To Make Them Tea, I Never Will

Nobody knew how to say Zarah Razafimahatratra’s surname when she was crowned Africa’s junior tennis champion in Lagos, Nigeria, in 2010. All they did know was that the young girl from Madagascar, who was a little over 15 years old and brimming with confidence, could become a star.
She had a solid backhand and controlled the baseline with ease, skills she learnt in South Africa, where she was a student at a Pretoria academy backed by the International Tennis Federation (ITF). Razafimahatratra describes her journey to victory as a “great adventure”, but admits that the excitement quickly gave way to real concerns.
Razafimahatratra’s form was improving to the point where she wanted to start playing in the junior events at grand slams. “I should be playing the Australian Open but for financial reasons, I cannot,” she said at the time of her junior title win.
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“To progress, I have to spend a lot of money, and this is what I currently lack. I’ve already improved by playing regularly in Africa. I made an effort to be at the top of Africa and now that I have, I need to play a lot more tournaments.”
Without sponsorship, global travel was difficult and Razafimahatratra found, like many other players from Africa, that the year’s first major event could not feature on her calendar.
Later that year, Razafimahatratra secured a small amount of corporate backing when motor vehicle company Materauto Ford in Madagascar decided to back her. It was too late to head to Australia, but she used the money to concentrate on making a name for herself.
In 2012, Razafimahatratra played two Grade 1 tournaments in South America and a full season of junior clay court tennis in Europe. She found the competition much tougher, losing in the first round in both Costa Rica and in Venezuela, but managing to reach the quarterfinals on clay. That was when she decided to turn professional and start playing with the big girls on the ITF circuit.
Razafimahatratra’s first outing was back in Nigeria. If she won the tournament, she would take home $25,000 in prize money, with the knowledge that she would have to be the best player on the court in order to pay for her career. Razafimahatratra knew she had to up her game.
She struggled initially, losing in the early stages of competitions, but by the end of the year, the Malagasy player was crowned champion in both the singles and doubles events in Potchefstroom, South Africa. She started 2013 with two victories in doubles tournaments in Egypt.
At 19, Razafimahatratra is her country’s top tennis player. She has handed Madagascar its first Fed Cup – a team event that is the female version of the Davis Cup – victory in a decade. However, money is still the biggest obstacle to her continued success.
Razafimahatratra is not alone. Across the continent, tennis players rely on slim pickings, even though the ITF runs three centers of development. The academies, in Morocco, South Africa and the most recent addition in Burundi, create a home for the sport in the north, south and east of the continent.
West Africa used to have a base in Dakar, Senegal, but the facility has lost its ITF status. It continues to ope-rate as a national centre of development, and with similar operations in Mali and Togo, that part of the continent is not entirely out in the cold when it comes to tennis.
Talented African players are awarded scholarships from the ITF, which allow them to spend up to a month at any of these centers. If they are deemed superstars in the making, they may be invited to spend longer periods at the academies, honing their skills. But the ITF has repeatedly exp-lained that the financial assistance it provides is insufficient.
“We would love to see the governments being more committed to developing the game,” Frank Courard of the ITF’s development projects told CNN when Burundi’s facility was opened. “If you look at our budget of $4.3 million each year, it’s what FIFA gives to maybe one or two nations. There’s a huge discrepancy.”
Football and athletics remain the most popular sports in Africa and one of the reasons is because the continent consistently produces heroes in those sports. Tennis role models are few and far between. Courard says the last one was probably Yannick Noah, the Frenchman of Cameroonian descent who began playing tennis in Africa and won the French Open in 1983.
“When he won, in Cameroon, kids identified (with him) and wanted to play tennis because they saw Yannick winning,” Courard recalls.
Currently, Burundi’s Hassan Ndayishimiye leads the stakes in the men’s game. He became the first Burundian to play at Wimbledon. He was ranked 112th on the junior table when he was given a wild card entry to the qualifying draw. Not only did he make it into the main section of the tournament, but he went on to play in the second round, an achievement he described as one of the best moments in his life.
“It was amazing. It was when I realized that this kid from Burundi can change the tennis world, he can make it. He can go where no Burundian has ever been – and no one has even heard of Burundi,” he said at the time.
Similarly, very few in the tennis world associate Madagascar with the game, and even fewer have heard of Razafimahatratra. Malagasy authorities would do well to heed the young woman’s call for support. The last tennis player from Madagascar to progress internationally was Dally Randriantefy, who reached a career high of 44 on the Women’s Tennis Association rankings. She “fought alone without the help of the state and finally decided to stop” in 2006.
Razafimahatratra has no intention of quitting but her country has already come close to losing her.
“I was asked by Egyptian coaches and South Africans to change nationalities but I have said no. I am proud of my country. I’ve given a lot to Madagascar and I still hope for some recognition,” she explains.
She may get that recognition if she makes it to an event such as the Australian Open. She will not be the first Malagasy to play there; Randriantefy participated in the tournament and retired in 2006 after losing in the first round. But Razafimahatratra could become the first African woman in a long time to do something special in a grand slam.
South Africa’s Chanelle Scheepers was the only representative from Africa at the 2011 Australian Open, and since then, Zimbabwe’s Cara Black has played in doubles events at the Rod Laver Arena. No other African woman has made it, but the next one could well be Razafimahatratra. The commentators had better start learning how to pronounce her name.

Owning the backHAND

Brian Mitchell grew up in a ring. When he was three years old, his father, Brian Mitchell senior, was a South African bantamweight champion. He was throwing punches from the age of nine. In the late 1980s, his boxing career lit up with 45 wins, 21 knock-outs, 12 World Boxing Association (WBA) Super Featherweight titles and an International Boxing Federation (IBF) Super Featherweight title. They called him the ‘Road Warrior’; he couldn’t fight at home because of sanctions in South Africa. Boxing brought him tragedy as well as fame. Now he is on the road again, paving the way ahead by spotting new boxers.
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From the ring to the ringside seat, the ‘Road Warrior’ says his name is one of the many reasons why boxers in Africa are drawn to his gym.
“It was quite a simple process for me. I had retired undefeated and to stay with boxing was easy for me. I left the game for three years, never went close to a gym or a fight, then I decided that boxing had been my whole life, and I opened a gym and became a trainer,” he says.
After training boxers for 10 years, Mitchell decided to move into the business side, using all the knowledge of his 35 years in the boxing world.
Mitchell’s rise to fame was hardly glamorous. He was raised in a broken home on the rough side of Johannesburg, in Troyeville. Mitchell grew up fighting in the streets more than in the ring. It steeled him through 10 years as an amateur. By the time he turned professional he was well conditioned and fame beckoned. On a spring evening in 1986, Mitchell won the World Super Featherweight title against Panama’s Alfredo Layne at Sun City, in the North West province of South Africa.
Victory proved bittersweet. South Africa was shunned from international sport because of apartheid. It forced Mitchell to become a wandering champion; traveling the globe to fight opponents on their home turf, with few South Africans to cheer him on.
“I think the fact that I was never able to defend my title in my own country did a lot for me. I had to all of a sudden become a man and stand on my own two feet and be half a politician and half a world champion boxer. Wherever I went I was bombarded with questions about apartheid and being a white South African. I had to stand up for myself from that point of view. I had to say ‘look I’m not a politician, I am a boxer, but what I know about politics, where I come from, boxing in the townships has no racial issues,’” he says.
“It was tough but it worked for me. It helped me to get to the hall of fame in boxing in 2009. In hindsight, all the hardships made my career. Fighting my opponents in their backyard and earning dollars helped me a lot. I didn’t have anybody bugging me for fight tickets. You had nobody around,” says Mitchell.
Nearly 30 years on, Mitchell has found many promising fighters. Among them is Democratic Republic of the Congo-born Ilunga ‘Junior’ Makabu. He has fought everyone he can in Africa and Mitchell is lining Makabu, who now has a WBC cruiserweight silver belt, up for fights in Monte Carlo.
“He can compete with the best in the world. He in fact phoned me to manage him. He said he wasn’t getting enough activity, enough fights. He knew I could get him fights so he phoned me and we did a bit of a deal,” he says.
According to Mitchell, boxing in Africa is on the rise. The popularity of what he calls boxercising, people who like training but never intend to fight, has increased interest.
“Boxing is a funny sport. Through the years it goes up and down. Right now, there are a lot of good fighters in the world. There is a lot of talk about boxing. A few years ago, it was going through a bit of a slump. It depends on who the actual figureheads are at the time. You need those personalities, like Floyd Mayweather and Muhammad Ali.”
In South Africa, top fights draw in crowds of 3,000. A Mayweather fight in Las Vegas gets 100,000. But most of the money in boxing is made from pay-per-view.
“In the States, pay-per-view is huge. Hundreds of millions of people will pay to watch a fight. The casinos pay to host them as well. Imagine two million hits paying $100 to watch a fight. Supersport [South African sport channel] will pay $200,000 for the fight,” says Mitchell.
Mayweather’s fight against Saul ‘Canelo’Alvarez drew $150 million in pay-per-view revenue with 2.2 million buys. The prize money is nothing to sneeze at either. Mayweather was expected to roll in a guaranteed $41.5 million appearance fee and a final take could approach $100 million after ticket sales, according to FORBES magazine. Makabu gets $10,000 for his fights.
“You’ve got to make it big. Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao are some of the highest paid sportsmen in the world. But they are the best in the world. I wouldn’t say it’s the best-paid sport in the world. If you get to the top, you’ll be a superstar. Guys have much better equipment available. They have fancy machines with treadmills, nutritionists and sports psychologists. That’s changed for the better. But I think the fighters were better in the seventies and the eighties than they are now. I think as far as toughness goes and work ethic and training in the gym, there were more characters worldwide that stood out in the eighties,” says Mitchell.
The glitz and glam of boxing does have its dark shadows. Mitchell’s longest shadow was cast by the death of Sowetan-born Jacob ‘Dancing Shoes’ Morake, the only boxer to beat Mitchell in a fight. Mitchell connected with a right cross to Morake’s head. The knock-out punch ended with Morake’s neck hitting the ropes. He never regained consciousness, dying in hospital a day later.
Mitchell says he paid for the funeral and it was hard to move on.  But he did.
“It was something that happened that you don’t expect to happen and you don’t want to happen. I wouldn’t have won a world title if I had retired after a fight like that. I left it. I can’t take the blame for it directly; it was part of the sport. You are going out there to knock him out and beat him, but you’re not looking for a tragedy.”
According to Bob Yearham, in charge of boxing at Emperors Palace in Johannesburg, Mitchell is the face of the sport in Africa.
“He’s a great man and presenter; he’s rubbed shoulders with the best,” he says.
The man who is a legend in boxing rings around the country is humble about his exploits. He says his most memorable punch was thrown where it all began; facing off with Layne. He’s also a man who doesn’t really enjoy boxing movies, but has a secret respect for Rocky and Million Dollar Baby. You could say the ‘Road Warrior’ has traveled every avenue in boxing. The only thing you could say he hasn’t done, is bite off someone’s ear.

The Road Warrior Points The Way

As Floyd Mayweather earned a massive $41.5 million from his most recent fight against Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez in Las Vegas, South African Phillip Ndou, who fought him a decade ago, was preparing to fight a nobody in Namibia for $4,544. One fighter on the crest of a triumphant wave; the other beached and struggling with a painful comeback. Both connected, and divided, by the outcome of one fight.
Rarely in sport has there been such a yawning gap in fortunes. Mayweather and Ndou, both 36, stand at opposite ends of the boxing scale. Mayweather has fought 45 times with 26 knockouts and remains undefeated. He is a world champion in five divisions and holds eight titles.
<div id="attachment_2342" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-2342" class="size-medium wp-image-2342" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/119037604-300x223.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="223" />Floyd Mayweather throws a right hand at Phillip Ndou early in the WBC lightweight championship fight. (Photo by Matthew Mitchell/Getty Images)</div>
Ndou, known as ‘Time Bomb’, has been sidelined by a brain injury he suffered in 2004. He is now trying to scrape his way back to his former glory.
On November 1, 2003, Ndou and Mayweather stood as equals, toe-to-toe for a WBC lightweight title fight in Michigan, United States. Big puncher Ndou was the hope of Africa that night, but Mayweather knocked him out in the seventh round. Mayweather earned $3 million and Ndou $250,000.
On the night Mayweather beat Alvarez for the WBC and WBA light-middleweight titles, Ndou was watching on television. The South African knew Mayweather would win.
“When I fought him he was not this experienced. Our mistake was we went out to prove a point, which is the weakness Mayweather capitalized on,” says Ndou.
The loss to Mayweather resulted in fading fortunes for Ndou. Seven months later, Ndou lost again to fellow countryman Isaac Hlatshwayo. He collapsed minutes after the fight.
Doctors ruled Ndou unfit to box after a brain scan. The former South African and WBA International featherweight champion, and WBU and WBC international junior lightweight champion, was forced to retire at the young age of 27.
The years after that defeat were spent in the wilderness of television commentary and a cameo in a local soap opera Muvhango. In a role scripted for him, Ndou played a boxing trainer in a club named after him—Time Bomb. That was as near to acclaim as it got for him.
Television brought instant money but a return to the ring took five years.
“I appreciated what people offered to keep me going and [help me] earn a living. But, I am an entertainer in the boxing ring; I missed my days of boxing.”
Ndou returned to the sport in February, 2009, defeating Frenchman, Rachid Drilzane, on a technical knockout in Saint-Quentin, France.
Under a new trainer, Bernie Pailman, Ndou is pursuing a strong comeback. He beat Pius Dipheko in June, climbing to fourth place in the South African welterweight ranking.
“I remain the only pound-for-pound titlist in Africa. I am on a mission to claim my former glory back. I will be a world champion again. I know I have it in me. Thirty six is just a number. I still have many more years [left in the ring],” Ndou says.
“I have never been operated on or taken medication, but here I am. I am grateful to God. He has been there for me.”
In boxing, female managers are rare. Promise Moyo, who manages Ndou, is not going to let her gender get in her, or Ndou’s, way. She was previously a deputy director at a municipality before acquiring her boxing promotion license late last year.
Namibia’s HS Okungo Promotions contracted Ndou for two fights in Windhoek, one against little-known Pohamba Mandume, which he won in eight rounds. Ndou will return to the country in November to fight a contender that is yet to be announced.
“In the few months I have been with Phillip, we secured the Namibian contract and he is in line to challenge for the title. Things are shaping up,” says an upbeat Moyo.
Moyo says the amount of money Ndou earns for a fight is not that important, all they want is to secure more fights and then get him back to the level required for top-notch international bouts.
“The fight against Pius earned him R25,000 ($2,499) and now he is going to Namibia for R45,000 ($4,499), we don’t see things in money terms but the leverage he’s getting day-by-day,” says Moyo.
“Phillip is so disciplined. You can’t believe he is a three-time former champion. Since he’s joined the gym, he’s been consistent and behaved like a hungry student. He has shown commitment to my ground rules,” says Pailman.
Ndou has spent six months training with Pailman, who is known as one of the quietest, yet wisest men in the business.
“We come a long way. We both know what is expected of each other. I am here to learn and he’s the teacher. If you want to work with me, I am not a child anymore and should not be treated like one. I respect trainers who show respect to their boxers,” says Ndou.
“The Namibians can be a clean-up on our front door before going to look outside. But my benchmark for him is Kaizer Mabuza,” says Pailman.
Mabuza is a highly ranked South African who put up a good fight against American and former undisputed world champion, Zab Judah, two years ago. Mabuza lost by a technical knockout.
If Lady Luck smiles on Ndou, the former champion’s dream of fighting before his own people in Thohoyandou, in northern South Africa, for the first time since he turned professional in 1996, could be realized.
You could argue Ndou has done his fair share of the drudgery in the scullery of the fight game, through a beating from Mayweather and recovery from brain damage. If ever there was an African Cinderella, Ndou should surely go to the ball.

Cinderella Man and the  $41.5 Million Slugger

The diamond, beautiful and rare, must first endure searing temperatures, immense pressure and the cut before it is polished to shine. For Jenna Clifford this sounds like her life.
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<h4>The Diamond Is Pressurized</h4>
Clifford was born in a time when patriarchy was first and women second. She was an only child who endured great pressure from her father, who often told her that if she wasn’t number one she was a failure.
“My father was really the guy that might have broken me as a child but it stood me in very good stead for the pain that business can bring.”
Her father was inspired by South African golfing champion Gary Player who borrowed the saying: “The harder I work, the luckier I get,” from American producer Samuel Goldwyn.
Her father pushed her into the deep end and hoped it would teach her discipline.
“For anyone, getting to the top of any field or any faculty, sport [allows one] to get their head and physicality into dedication, drive and sticking at it even when you cry… Business is the sport of the mind. Sport is the business of the body.”
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<h4>The Diamond Is Chiseled</h4>
Despite this, at 19, a naive Clifford fell prey to the so called ‘Cinderella Complex’—all she wanted was to find a prince charming, who would love and look after her. After two failed marriages, she found that a fairy tale can often be grim.
“In my lifetime, I’ve had three unions. The first one I was just under 20 and then again I got married in 1987, then again in 1993, which has been about a 23-year relationship.”
Clifford’s struggles with men were not limited to her personal life.
“When you rise as a female, you will be challenged by your male counterparts. They can’t challenge your acumen and your efficiency in what you do, but they can challenge your being, as a woman, and hit your emotional bodies to get control or compliance, which is a very subtle way of getting compliance. Other women get violent compliance… it doesn’t just happen to women who are necessarily rural and un-educated, it happens in the highest order of society.”
Along the way, Clifford has learnt from the enemy.
“I just find that I fit in better with the male counterpart from a head space point of view. I love the way men focus. They don’t pick 16 things to do, they pick one and the number two will normally be their lifestyle sport or car racing or rugby…”
Another major problem is that women tend to find it harder to support each other.
“When you keep women weak, meaning break them one by one, they can’t stand as a collective. It’s as simple as that. Women are scared to stand as a collective… and it usually takes someone like me, that’s had men shape their life destructively and possibly turned it into a positive thing.”
One of Clifford’s inspirations is Nelson Mandela, who left a lasting impression on her.
“The humility, the kindness… Color is nothing that he sees, he sees the individual… He stuck to a dream irrespective to the punishment. It’s the same principal of greatness; he just had to go through 29 years of hell to get there.”
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<h4>The Diamond Is Polished</h4>
Clifford has made peace with her past, and acknowledges its role in shaping her life. With a successful jewelry company that has international clients—including Celine Dion and Debra Messing—three loving daughters and a husband, life could not be better. As for getting on with her father’s generation?
“With strong patriarchs, my age group to my father’s age group, I get along with them exceptionally well now, because they don’t treat me like a woman. They think of me as a different being. So, I’m now okay for them because, in their minds, I’ve achieved success.”
Dedicated to the empowerment of women, Clifford will be collaborating with Doctor Dorianne Cara Weil, Professor Shirley Zinn, Dion Chang and Doctor Marko Saravanja, in a new venture called Inner Genius. The project will allow women to interact with these mentors, who will advise them on how to succeed in their personal and professional lives.
Surely, it is worth listening to Clifford, a cut in polished
diamond.

A Glint Of Feminist Fire

His trainer claims he possesses the extraordinary hand speed reminiscent of the legendary Sugar Ray Leonard. His detractors warn that South Africa’s Tommy Oosthuizen’s love of fast food, women, clubs and bars could cause irreparable damage to a career destined for greatness.
They hope the riot act, read by his promoter Rodney Berman will force Oosthuizen, defending super-middleweight champion of the International Boxing Organization (IBO), to abandon what critics claim is an ill-disciplined lifestyle.
Berman admitted to berating Oosthuizen for his failure to make the initial super-middleweight limit on the Friday before the fight against the veteran Colombian slugger Fulgencio Zuniga, on November 10.
“Exposed as a party animal” and “preference for pubs and clubs outweighs his yearning for the gym” were some of the phrases used as boxing writers challenged Oosthuizen’s struggle to reach the super-middleweight limit of 76.36 kilograms.
Zuniga also warned Oosthuizen, after the 24-year-old South African needed extra time to shed 800g to make the weight.
“You can be the best boxer but if you don’t take your career seriously, then you will have serious problems. He has got to be very careful about such things if he wants to mix it with the big boys out there,” says Zuniga.
Berman was equally blunt in his assessment: “I don’t want another Johnny du Plooy or Dingaan Thobela. Tommy is young and impressionable. I read him the riot act about his weight problems. I have seen so many boxing careers that were ruined because of a lack of dedication”.
“Potentially, I see Tommy in the super-middleweight section for another three years. After three years, he might have to move up to the light-middleweight category, as he is a tall fighter at six feet four inches. He can use the next three years to leave a legacy.”
Harold Volbrecht, Oosthuizen’s trainer, the former South African welterweight champion who fought 54 professional bouts, dismissed criticism about Oosthuizen’s love for pubs as mere media hype. He said the wrong friends and a lack of respect for money contributed to his weight problems.
“He doesn’t respect money enough.”
Oosthuizen admitted that the wrong lifestyle exacerbated his weight problems.
“Sometimes you take four cool drinks instead of two and you start loving barbeques. Currently, I’m seeing a sport psychologist, Jannie de Wet. It’s about the right focus and peaking at the right moment. He also helps me to deal with women and things like that and to find the right balance between Tommy the man and Tommy the sports person.”
Probed about his alleged love of the bars, Oosthuizen said he’s definitely no pub loafer, although he might have a drink.
“Yes, I have socialized, but it was not outrageous,” he added.
“The fight against Zuniga was a turning point. I will never have trouble with the weight limit again.
“I felt I could have stopped Zuniga in his tracks. But because I had to make the extra effort to shed weight, it drained and weakened me. Next time, I will ensure that I am within the limits three to four weeks before a fight.”
Oosthuizen’s father, Charles, was a brilliant boxer, according to Pierre Coetzer, a former heavy-weight champion of South Africa. Charles Oosthuizen, the former South African middleweight champion, fought 35 professional bouts between 1984 and 1991.
“My father taught me to stay humble and to train harder than my greatest challengers in order to outperform them in the ring. It’s true to say that boxing is in my blood. That’s why I ventured into the ring for the first time at the age of six,” says Oosthuizen.
Berman considers Oosthuizen a gifted south paw and arguably the Ernie Els of South African boxing.
His hand speed is extraordinary, he says, and he has a strong jaw that can withstand severe punishment.
Volbrecht said Oosthuizen’s hand speed is the equal to that of a former welterweight legend, Sugar Ray Leonard.
Oosthuizen, undefeated in 22 bouts, is ranked fourth on The Ring Magazine’s list of super-middleweight fighters in the world.
Du Plooy, one of South Africa’s finest and most charismatic heavyweight champions of the past thirty years, acknowledges Oosthuizen’s abilities but has a stern warning about the pitfalls.
“Tommy is extremely talented and a very good counter-puncher, like his trainer, Harold Volbrecht, was. My advice to Tommy is: stay away from booze, from wrong friends and train hard.”
“People claimed that alcohol and cocaine caused my downfall as a boxing champion. That’s not the truth. I did not fulfill my potential because I was lazy and did not train enough. I doubt if I did 500 kilometers of road work during my entire career.”
“After the completion of my boxing career, I snorted my way through more than a million rand of cocaine. With the help of God and my committed wife, I started a successful business career. And consequently, I have trained four or five world-champion fighters, so my life is on track. I have been clean from cocaine for 12 to 13 years. I have earned the T-shirt and have paid my school fees.”
“To me, Brian Mitchell is the type of role model that Tommy should attempt to emulate. I don’t know if he won a world title as an amateur but look what he achieved as a professional fighter thanks to his total dedication.”
If Oosthuizen won’t heed Du Plooy’s advice, his corner might remind him of how a love for fast food temporarily ruined Roberto Durán’s reputation.
Durán, considered one of the greatest lightweight boxers of all time, retired at the end of the eighth round in his world welterweight fight against Sugar Ray Leonard in 1980 by using the dreaded words no mas (Spanish for ‘no more’).
The Panamanian, whose bingeing and fasting had taken its toll and had him ill-prepared for the bout as he battled to reach the weight limit, looked clumsy while Leonard danced around and taunted him.
Durán was unfit for the contest and retired rather than face the inevitable humiliation at the hands of Leonard in the later rounds, as his stamina faded, claimed the publication Lords of the ring, The greatest fighters since 1950.
Volbrecht said HBO—an American premium cable television network, which reaches around 30 million subscribers in the States and broadcasts in at least 151 countries worldwide—is already on board for a possible unification bout in the super-middleweight division involving Oosthuizen that was hosted by the States in March.
“If your fights are broadcasted on HBO with its massive appeal you have arrived,” he says.
Volbrecht hinted to the fact that Oosthuizen might fight against Adonis Stevenson as an elimination-bout for a showdown with Carl Froch, the super-middleweight champion of the International Boxing Federation (IBF).
Stevenson, Froch and Mikkel Kessler—the super-middleweight champion of the World Boxing Association (WBA)—are marque-names in a division that has attracted the attention of WBO, while super-middleweight fever is spreading amongst adorning fans.
It presents Oosthuizen with opportunities to forge a reputation as one of South Africa’s finest-ever super-middleweight fighters, provided he contemplates the history lesson of the No Mas-fight and takes to heart the timely and fatherly advice from Du Plooy and Berman.

Stay Away From Booze  And Bad Friends, Young Man

It is mid-morning and the bright light of a South African spring shafts through the windows. Outside, the bush birds twitter contentedly in the garden, inside, the whistle and thud of gloves pierce the air of the tiny gym in the suburb of Linden in Johannesburg.
Inside the ropes of the ring, Alan Toweel is having the time of his life behind the training pads; taking the punches to his palms, before wheeling his arms, shoulder high, to force his fighter to bob and weave. It is a work out that gleams with sweat and concentration. It is training to hone the skills and reaction that can make the difference between sweet victory and defeat in a bloody heap.
“People say boxing is dead, I don’t think so,” says Toweel with his broad smile.
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To say Toweel has made a change and taken a risk, late in life, is almost like saying Muhammad Ali was quick on his feet. Six months before spending his days sweating in the ring, Toweel occupied a cozy desk at the South African Revenue Service in Johannesburg, where he was a senior manager with 24 pensionable years of service under his belt. At the time he quit public service, for a life of boxing gloves and punch bags, he was offered an executive position at the age of 47.
“I was told it was a very good job and they were a bit surprised by my decision. I still get phone calls about it now from colleagues who can’t believe it!” he says.
“It is a bit risky, but I am a fitness trainer as well, so it all helps pay the bills. I am probably the only boxing trainer in the country who has a B.Com in finance and a higher diploma in tax.”
It is a tough game to switch to. There are too many titles and vested interests in the boxing world where a canny negotiator is as useful a solid right hook.
“There are too many titles, they should unify them and make it more interesting,” says Toweel.
The financial decision for Toweel to chance it, in the topsy-turvy world of professional boxing, was a split decision on points. Emotionally, to extend the metaphor, it was a first round knockout.
For Toweel, boxing is his working week and his Sunday rest. He is one of the fighting Toweels, the tough Johannesburg family, which produced a string of professional boxers. They include his late uncle, Vic Toweel, the Benoni Atom, a world-class battling bantamweight who won the world title in 1950 and ended up on the cover of The Ring Magazine.
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“He was the best this country has ever produced, he was this country’s only universal and undisputed world champion,” says Toweel.
On the walls above the ring, are pictures telling the story of the gloved Toweels with all their championship belts, knockouts, sweat and glory. As a young man, Toweel did his ring apprenticeship with the gloves and carrying the ice bucket in the corner. His relatives ran a string of professional fighters over decades.
In the ring below, one of Toweel’s new charges is one of many fighters who would give his eye teeth for the accumulated glory of the pictures above. Zolani Marali’s fists are pounding the pads like his life depends upon it and in a funny way, it does.
For months, Toweel has been training Marali for his last shot at greatness against father time and growing odds. If anyone has a claim to being Africa’s Rocky, it is Marali, the fighter who learned to box in his father’s garage in Mdantsane, near East London, in South Africa’s Eastern Cape.
The light welterweight is ranked fourth in South Africa and 67th in the world with five defeats in 26 professional fights. At the age of 35, Marali is deemed in his last five minutes as a professional boxer. The wiry southpaw, with his quick feet and sharp jab, was once known as “Untouchable”, now the young fighters call him “Old Bones”. Like Rocky, he believes there is at least one more fight in him and that he can defy the critics to be a champion of the people, standing proudly in the limelight, one last time. In any case, he needs two or three more good purses to set himself up after the final bell.
“I want to get enough money to set up my own gym back at home so I can train youngsters and make a living,” says Marali.
Toweel came across Marali at Emperor’s Palace, in Johannesburg , on a night of defeat in 2009. Marali lost to the up-and-coming South Korean, Ji-Hoon Kim, in a technical knockout in the ninth.
“His style was asking for a good right hand, he was fooling around and he got caught. I predicted that night that he would get knocked out. After that, he was written off and lost everything. About a year ago his manager came to me and said no one wanted to train him and months later we began to work together,” says Toweel.
“I want him to win three more fights to set him up for the future. He has got a bit of fuel left in his tank. He is a very determined and disciplined fighter, but he still has a lot to learn.”
On November 3, in Marali’s old stamping ground of East London, this education will be put to the test against what is likely to be a severe examination at the swift hands of Ali ‘Rush Hour’ Funeka, a classy fighter, ranked 41st in the world, who has fought in Las Vegas.
The fight has all the history and needle that makes for interesting boxing.
The two boxers fought their hearts out at Monte Casino in Johannesburg on November 19, 2011 for the vacant WBF light welterweight world title. Funeka won on a split decision.
“I thought he [Marali] won the first fight and I think the re-match in East London will be one of the best fights you will ever see,” says Toweel.
To spice it up even more is backyard rivalry. Marali and Funeka grew up and trained together in Mdantsane. They have been fighting each other since the age of 12.
“It is a bit like one of those kung fu films… You remember, 20 years ago you killed my father, you remember?” laughs Marali.
“Our wives are even friends with each other, but on the night there will be no laughing, just killing.”
Toweel wants to make sure Marali laughs last on his way to comfortable retirement to prove a boxing point on behalf of both of them.
Only the hardest of hearts would deny the Rocky of Africa one last hurrah.
<h4>The Agony of Victory</h4>
It was a story written in blood on an African night of fistic fury. Twenty thousand people screamed victory and millions listened in on radio as the referee raised the right arm of the new world champion, Vic Toweel, at the end of 15 grueling rounds. His battered and swollen face managed a faint smile and even planted a good natured kiss on the cheek of his equally bruised opponent, but inside he must have been in agony.
Toweel was taken from the ring to hospital where surgeons operated on his broken nose and busted ear drum. He was to spend the first week of his two-year reign as champion between the operating table and a hospital bed. It was the painful end to a victory that put the image of the young fighter from Africa on the streets of New York and on the cover of the boxing bible, The Ring.
In only his 14th bout, after a mere 16 months of professional boxing, Toweel had weathered a barrage of punches to reach the pinnacle of his chosen career. He was the new world bantamweight champion and South Africa’s only undisputed and universal title holder. Those were the days, a world away from the current plethora of throwaway alphabet soup titles, when there were eight weight divisions and eight world champions.
It was even sweeter for the Toweel camp that the title was taken from a truly elegant and world-class fighter, Manuel Ortiz, of Corona, California, one of the world’s great bantamweights who notched up 100 victories in 131 fights.
Many argue that Ortiz, then 33, was on his way down as a fighter, when he fought Toweel at Wembley Stadium, in Johannesburg. He had held the world title for more than two years after winning it in 1949, in Honolulu, Hawaii, the home town of Dado Marino.
Certainly, black-and-white film of the fight shows Ortiz oozing confidence as he breezed into the ring in a silk dressing gown looking like he was going for a Martini cocktail instead of a punishing boxing match. When Ortiz realized he was behind on points in the latter rounds he threw everything bar the kitchen sink at Toweel, so it was no easy ride for the new champion.
It was the fruit of years of sweat for the Toweel boxing clan. Toweel, who fought at the London Olympics in 1948, had been boxing with his brothers since the age of nine.
The patriarch of the family, Mike Toweel, who had immigrated to South Africa from Lebanon at the turn of the 20th century, had trained his sons to box in a tin shack at the back of the family home in Benoni in eastern Johannesburg. Each one was to make his mark
in boxing.
Toweel, a former woodcarver, held on to his title until November 15, 1952 when he lost to Australian Jimmy Carruthers at the Rand Stadium in Johannesburg, before 28,000 people. There were attempts at a comeback, but Toweel, who struggled with his weight and breathing problems, caused by his many nose injuries, called it a day after 28 fights, three defeats and one draw. He emigrated in the 1980s and died in Sydney, Australia, in 2008, aged 80, leaving a legacy of grit and determination that made the name of the Benoni Atom.

The Boxing Civil Servant  In Rocky’s Corner

When he was young, Evander Holyfield’s dream was to become the undisputed heavyweight champion of the world. Considered too small for a heavyweight, some gave him no chance against the big guys of the time. So Holyfield went about it the correct way.
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First, he unified the Cruiserweight division by defeating the likes of Dwight Muhammad Qawi (WBA), Carlos De Leon (WBC) and Ossie Ocasio (IBF). That was when only the WBA, WBC and IBF world belts mattered. Nowadays, of course, we are talking about the alphabet soup; IBF, WBC, WBA, WBO, IBO, IBC, WBU, WBF and goodness knows what other titles are yet to emerge. The result is that in this day and age, it is pointless and meaningless for boxers to even think about being called undisputed world champions.
Holyfield then went about chasing his dream right from his first fight—a six-round victory over unknown journeyman, Lionel Byarm, at Madison Square Garden, New York in November 1984. He proved his worth as a heavyweight and earned his right to fight for the world heavyweight championship by defeating James Tillis, Pinklon Thomas, Michael Dokes, Adilson Rodrigues, Alex Stewart and Seamus McDonagh. He could and should have then faced the undefeated, undisputed heavyweight king of the time, Mike Tyson.
The only problem was James Buster Douglas knocked out Tyson in the 10th round in Tokyo to claim his title.
So it was Douglas that Holyfield faced and knocked out in the third round at the Mirage Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas in October 1990 to be crowned the undisputed heavyweight championship of the world.
So then, what is Evander Holyfield talking about when he says he is still boxing because his goal is to become the undisputed heavyweight champion of the world? He is telling anybody and everybody who will listen, including me, that he continues to fight at the ripe age of 48 because he hasn’t reached his goal of being called “undisputed” champion. He says for as long as it takes to become the undisputed champion, he will continue to box. I gave up continuing this line of questioning when I realized I was not going to get anywhere.
Moving quickly along, next question: Do people ask him a lot about the infamous ear biting courtesy of Mike Tyson? This happened in June 1997 at the MGM Grand Las Vegas when Tyson, facing certain back-to-back defeat at the hands of Holyfield, took the easy way out when he got himself disqualified by biting off a piece of Evander’s ear, not once but twice. Holyfield’s answer to this question was a terse NO; no one asks him anymore about that fateful night these days, he says. Holyfield had to be rushed to hospital that night for doctors to attach a piece of his ear. Holyfield does say, though, he has forgiven Tyson and the two last met and spoke a year ago at a function.
Holyfield says he has no connections with Africa but has ambitions of fighting on the continent before finally hanging up his gloves. He thinks given resources and time, African boxing could be great.
In his twilight years, Holyfield has travelled the globe, fighting in Moscow in 2007, Switzerland in 2008, and Denmark in 2011. All his other fights, 57 in total, happened in the USA.
Without revealing much, Holyfield says he has enough business outside boxing and like most people, has lost money in the past in bad investments. He earns a lot from speeches and celebrity appearances.
Holyfield says sometimes he feels like boxing takes too much of his business time. But he loves who he is and still enjoys boxing, and wouldn’t swap careers for anything.
Another pugilist who appears to have had no problem leaving the ring and going into business is George Foreman, the man who lost his title to Muhammad Ali in the famous “Rumble in the Jungle” in Kinshasa in 1974. Foreman has since made a fortune selling grills.
Holyfield says whereas he is happy for Foreman, he will still remain Evander Holyfield and does not wish to trade places with Big George. Holyfield beat Foreman on points in April 1999 when he defended his three titles.
All said and done, the man they call the Real Deal, despite fighting way past his sell-by date, will always have his place in boxing’s hall of fame. The only man to have won the biggest prize in boxing, the world heavyweight championship an unprecedented four times, he remains humble and professional. He never enters the ring less than 100% fit and always gives more than 100%.
For one so fit, incredibly, Holyfield was struck down by a heart attack in his mid-30s. He was told by the doctors he would never fight again.
Miraculously, his heart healed completely and he has boxed on, undeterred, for more than a decade.
Fighting spirit has driven Holyfield on. He hopes that big money deal to fight in Africa will come one day, but even for the tenacious Real Deal, time is surely running out.

Tag: Champion

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