Jabulani gloves up for SA title shot today
● When Jabulani Makhense started boxing on the sly as a kid, he occasionally copped hidings from his mother for getting home late after training.
As a nine-year-old growing up in Malamulele, Limpopo, he believed he had two options — be honest to his mum and risk being told to quit the sport, or train in secret and be punished for failing to account for his whereabouts.
It didn’t take Makhense long to confess his fistic secret to his mom, who responded with an ask-your-dad approach.
His father gave his blessing and the rest is history.
The kid was born to fight. He was throwing punches from before he could remember, and trainer Sebastiaan Rothmann rates him as one of the most gifted fighters he’s seen.
Today the boxer steps up in class to prove that he’s deserving of the hype, challenging SA junior-welterweight titleholder Xolani Mcotheli at Emperors Palace.
On paper it looks like a mismatch. Unbeaten Makhense, 25, has had just six fights as a professional, with four of them coming inside the distance. The champion boasts 17 victories (12 KOs) and four losses.
The gap appears even wider when measured in rounds, at 22 to 138.
But Rothmann is already comparing Makhense to his own former stablemate Mzukisi Sikali, the late flyweight.
“Since Sikali, he is the most talented fighter I’ve seen,” said Rothmann,
“He does things so unorthodox in certain positions ... He does stuff where I think ‘what the hell did I just see?’.”
As an amateur Makhense won a lightweight bronze at the 2011 Commonwealth Youth Games.