Samurai challenge
SA boxing pair bet titles in Macau
● Stablemates Hekkie Budler and Moruti Mthalane defend their world titles against a pair of Japanese challengers in the gambling capital of Macau tomorrow.
It’s the first time South Africans are engaging in world title bouts on New Year’s Eve, and if there’s an omen to be taken from a previous fight on the date closest to that, then it’s good.
In 1997 Zolani Petelo scored a big upset when he knocked out Ratanapol Sor Vorapin for the IBF strawweight crown in Thailand on December 27.
But as a month, December wears a poker face when it comes to South African boxers fighting for mainstream belts, as Budler and Mthalane are doing.
Budler is defending his Ring magazine and WBA junior-flyweight straps against unbeaten protege Hiroto Kyoguchi, who with just 11 bouts to his name is already a former IBF strawweight champion.
Mthalane puts his IBF flyweight crown on the line against hard-hitting Masahiro Sakamoto, with just one loss in 14 outings.
Budler, 30, has a record of 32 wins and two losses and Mthalane, 36, 36.-2.
In total, South Africans have fought in 23 world title bouts in December over the years, with 10 wins, 12 defeats and one no contest.
Of those 23, 16 were abroad, with seven wins, eight losses and the no contest; on home soil there are still more losses, by 4-3.
Vic Toweel was the first South African boxer to engage in a December battle, making the first defence of his undisputed world bantamweight title with a 10th-round knockout of Englishman Danny O’Sullivan in 1950.
Perhaps that’s a good sign for Budler, the nation’s first fighter to win a Ring magazine championship belt since Toweel did it 68 years before.
Other famous winners include Brian Mitchell (1987) and Baby Jake Matlala (1993), but arguably the most significant win was by Peter Mathebula, who became the first black South African world champion when he claimed the WBA flyweight crown in 1980.
Mathebula was SA’s third world champion after Toweel and Arnold Taylor, but he was the first to capture a belt overseas, winning in Los Angeles.
When Piet Crous outpointed Ossie Ocasio for the WBA cruiserweight belt at Sun City in 1984, SA briefly boasted two world champions. The other titleholder was WBA heavyweight king Gerrie Coetzee, who fought in the main bout later that night and got stopped by American challenger Greg Page.
Francois Botha beat Germany’s Axel Schulz for the IBF version of the heavyweight crown in 1995, but he was stripped soon afterwards for failing a drug test.
The result was changed to a no contest; the win that never was.
Thulani “Sugar Boy” Malinga is the only fighter in both the win and loss columns.
He was beaten on points by IBF supermiddleweight champion Lindell Holmes of the US on December 15 1990.
But seven years later, at the age of 42, he downed England’s Robin Reid to win the WBC super-middleweight crown on December 19 1997.
South Africans have fought in 23 world title bouts in December over the years, with 10 wins, 12 defeats and one no contest
Welcome Ncita lost two December scraps. First he was relieved of his IBF junior-featherweight crown through a heartbreaking 11-round knockout by Kennedy McKinney in 1992. Then he was stopped in 10 rounds trying to win the IBF feathweight title from American Hector Lizzaraga in 1997.
The IBF featherweight title went back to SA with Mbulelo Botile after a 12th-round stoppage of Paul Ingle, who nearly died afterwards.
Dingaan Thobela is one of the high-profile losers, as was Pierre Fourie, who failed in his second bid against world light-heavyweight champion Bob Foster in the first mixed-race bout in apartheid SA in 1973.
The government had to change laws to allow that fight to happen.
One of the most impressive December performances was delivered by IBF lightweight champion Phillip Holiday who outpointed American challenger Ivan Robinson on December 21.
The only time two South African world champions have defended their titles on the same bill, they were victorious — Mitchell and Ncita in September 1990.
If Budler and Mthalane are superstitious, there’s different ways of reading the omens.
But they’re both hard workers, and hopefully that’s all they’ll need tomorrow.