Brazen Mad Dog bares his soul
We relive some of the dramas in the career of a spectacular shooting star
VERY few boxing fans count Lunga “Mad Dog” Ntontela as one of the world champions produced in the region. This is due to the brevity of the period that he held the IBO world junior-bantamweight crown as he lost it in his first defence to Englishman Jason Booth back in 2003. But Ntontela’s boxing career was so full of drama – sometimes out of the ring – that very few boxers have nicknames as apt as his.
Legendary promoter Mzi Mnguni, while organising Ntontela’s clash against Hawk Makepula at Orient Theatre in 2004, said as much, adding: “This Ntontela boy, he is a real Mad Dog.”
Ntontela’s dramatic entrance to boxing was quickly over when boxers his age were still blazing the trail. In this chat he tells us what happened, why there was such drama around him and more.
BOXING MECCA: Welcome to the pages of Boxing Mecca Mad Dog. I haven’t seen you at a boxing tournament for a while. LUNGA NTONTELA: Thanks bra. I’m busy with my day job so I don’t normally get time to go to boxing tournaments. But whenever I can, I do. For instance I was present when Lindile Tshemese pulled that remarkable come-from-behind knockout win over Dumezweni.
BM: Why did you specially go to Tshemese’s fight? Is it because he was defending the title that introduced you to the boxing scene back then? LN: It was partly that. The fact that Tshemese holds the title I first won endeared him to me so much that I made sure to be there to offer him support.
BM: Did you expect him to pull the win in that fashion? LN: Yes but I had to shout at him to get on with the fight. He was miles behind on points and I went to ringside and yelled at him to go for broke otherwise the title would have slipped through his fingers. And he did exactly that so much that after the fight he came to shake my hand.
BM: Mad Dog, how did you start boxing? LN: I was about 14 years old when I started. It was through the influence of my friend Sibongile Ngwili, who watched me beating people up in street fights and felt I would be able to hold my own in boxing. We first trained at Top Rank gymnasium before going to the Yonwaba Boxing Club, which was housed at Phakamile Primary School and owned by Mthobeli Mhlophe, a former SA featherweight and junior-lightweight champion. Bra Mtho was able to secure the premises because his mother was the school principal. He later relinquished ownership of the club to Welcome Ncita and when the club attracted plenty of boxers it was moved to Mdantsane Highway Taxi Rank. BM: That is when I became aware of the club. I recall visiting it and seeing all of you when you were still young.
LM: Yes, we were an enthusiastic bunch of boxers and the spirit was unbelievable.
BM: That is why the club produced so many good boxers – you, Mhikiza Myekeni (a former SA junior-flyweight and IBO flyweight champion), Gabula Vabaza ( a former SA flyweight and WBU junior-bantamweight champion) Manelisi Mbilase (a former SA featherweight champion), just to mention but a few. LN: How can you forget Mabere (former SA mini-flyweight and IBF, IBO world champion)?
BM: Gosh, how could I? LN: (Laughing) I guess it is because when you visited us Mabere was probably absent as he was busy with his amateur boxing as part of the SA team.
BM: While I had seen you at the gym I only became aware of your prowess in your bout against Zolani Mbelekane. LN: I guess many people actually became aware of my existence after that bout. But to be honest it was my least favourite bout because I took a lot of punishment there.
BM: But that was your style, Mad Dog. You were a slow starter and you used to rally back while behind on points to stop your opponents. It was the same scenario against Sithembele Nombembe. LN: Yes, but Mbelekane gave me such a terrible beating that my body was sore for days after the fight. Another issue was that fight marked the beginning of a weight struggle. I could not eat for weeks while preparing for that fight because if you recall I was still young, so I did not know how to monitor weight.
BM: Yes, I used to hear stories of your love for a quick chow... LN: (Laughing). Very true. I carried myself like I used to before I became a boxer, not knowing my attitude needed to change.
BM: But you easily destroyed Mzi Dintsi when you dethroned him for the SA junior-bantamweight title. LN: I played mind games with Mzi D and it worked. I could see before the fight that he was scared.
BM: After dethroning Dintsi your name was all over the country, with Johannesburg journalists musing about a loose pitbull that was destroying people down in East London. Who gave you this “Mad Dog” nickname anyway? LN: I was given it by Bra Welcome’s older brother, Mzwandile. He said I reminded him of a certain American boxer who went by the same moniker.
BM: But after beating Dintsi you began a downward spiral even though you did beat Abbey Mnisi for your first title defence. But you were no longer the same, and if I recall correctly you struggled mightily to beat Mnisi. LN: Yes. The Dispatch even said I lost the fight. But that was the beginning of my troubles with Bra Welcome. Firstly he wanted to pay me peanuts for the fight until Bra Andile (Sidinile) intervened. Bra Welcome had favourites in the club, and his boxer was Gabula.
BM: And that was when the club began to split, with Andile, Welcome and Siphatho (Handi) all going their separate ways. LN: Yes, and we were caught in the middle. But Bra Andile had always stood by me so I sided with him.
BM: Come on Mad Dog! I know you were not happy when Gabula was given a preference for a world title shot in the junior-bantamweight division, which was your division, while he was fighting in the lower flyweight. LN: You have incredible memory. It was precisely like that. I could not understand why Gabula had to move up to my division to get a world title shot while I was ignored. Remember I was already rated by the IBO and WBU so it did not make sense to me at all.
BM: Was the fact that you reportedly gave him a beating in a sparring session part of your reason to be upset? LN: (Laughing) I don’t want to talk about that. But indeed Mbilase and I once sparred with him while he was preparing for a fight. The sparring session was halted midway because he could not take what we were dishing out.
BM: Is it true that in the week of Gabula’s WBU title fight (against Tanzanian Magoma Shabani) you jumped out of a moving car because you were so upset? LN: My goodness! How do you know that? Yes, I was upset and I could not make sense of what was happening. Their explanation that I was rated in two world bodies so I was going to get my chance later did not make any sense to me. I asked them why not let me fight for a world title then vacate it for Gabula to contest, instead of bypassing me and giving him a title shot in my own division when he was a flyweight?
BM: But you later got your chance at a world title when you beat that Venezuelan guy Edison Torres with Dudu Bungu and Cyril Adams in your corner. LN: Yes, again it was through the efforts of Bra Ace because he made sure that he fulfilled the promise he made to me that I was going to get my chance.
BM: Now I will have to ask you this, Mad Dog. Why did you and your twin sister always cry in the dressing room before making your way to the ring for your fights? LN: Yhoo, I don’t think there is anything you don’t know in the boxing world. I had even forgotten about some of the things you are asking me. Eish, I guess my sister and I had that bond of twins so she felt emotional when she saw me about to engage in a fight. Yes we would hug each other and cry together before I walked out to the ring. I’m telling you that embrace used to give me incredible strength and no matter what you threw at me I would not feel anything. I think that was the basis of my victories. Even though I was weight drained, that strength helped me to knock out Mbelekane and Nombembe.
BM: What is her name? LN: Our names are similar because we are twins. Mine is Lunga while hers is Lungiswa.
BM: I cannot let you go without asking you about your fight with Makepula. If I recall correctly you wanted to pull out of that fight. LN: Yes I wanted to pull out. In fact I pulled out and did not train for two weeks, at which time my weight ballooned to 86kg. Mind you, we were scheduled to fight in the junior-bantamweight, where the limit is 52.16kg so you can imagine the amount of weight I needed to lose. My car was stolen just while I was preparing for the fight and I could not concentrate at all because that was my first car.
BM: Come on, Mad Dog. Yes, I heard the story of your stolen car but was your fling with a girl of one of the organisers not the reason you couldn’t focus? LN: My car was stolen and that was the main reason I was disorientated. Yes, there was also that girl I was seeing but that was not the main issue. Also I was told to go and train with the late Bra Menzi Nqodi, and I did not like that arrangement at all.
BM: I was told that you did not want to go back to train at Menzi’s gym after you were given a beating in sparring by Zolile Mbityi. LN: That was a fat lie. Mbityi did not beat me. In fact I did not even spar with him because I was too heavy. I sparred with Mpush Makambi and you know how big Mpush was. It was only when I was weighing around 59kg that I began to spar with other boxers but even then Mbityi did not beat me.
BM: So all in all you were not yourself when you lost to Makepula? LN: Bra Mzi, Khulile Radu and Phakamile Jacobs went to fetch me from home and forced me to train for the fight saying I was not going to pull out. As they say, you can take a horse to water but you cannot make it drink.
BM: Are there any boxers that impress you in the current crop? LN: Yes – Zolani Tete. And of course Tshemese.