Berman hails ‘golden era’
BOXING promoter Rodney Berman becomes agitated when naysayers keep referring to the former “glory days of boxing”.
“What glory days?” he asks. He stands firm in his conviction that the current crop of South African boxers are among the best, a conviction made even stronger by pugilists’ performances at Emperors Palace last weekend.
Thulani Mbenge produced a flawless display to outwit and outpunch Argentinean Diego Chaves in seven rounds to win the IBO world welterweight title.
Despite coming to the fight with 13 bouts compared to Chaves’ 30, Mbenge outclassed the visitor with a mature boxing style, flooring him twice to bring the fight to an abrupt end.
In the lead-up to that battle, Thabiso Mchunu came up with the goods, when he stopped Latvian Ricardis Bolotniks in his tracks to breath new life in to his status among the cruiserweights. Mchunu will now face Thomas Oosthuizen in a high stakes clash on September 1.
The most impressive display however, came from Rowan Campbell, who defied his seven-fight record as a relative newbie in the super-middleweight division, when he fought like a seasoned campaigner to knockthe daylights out of Malkhaz Sujashvilli.
Campbell, whose boxing style is already drawing comparisons with the great Charlie Weir has never fought in the amateur ranks, where boxers often polish up their craft.
But his inexperience was not in evidence against his Georgian foe.
He controlled the fight with a mature display to record yet another thrilling win. The victories by South African boxers left Berman gushing over the fact that local boxing could not be in better hands.
“I truly believe that we are witnessing the best era in local boxing,” he said. “Look at what our guys did and if you think that there are others such as Zolani Tete [WBO world bantamweight champion], Hekkie Budler [unified world junior-flyweight champion], Moruti Mthalane [IBO and former IBF flyweight king], Kevin Lerena [IBO cruiserweight champion] then we cannot be in better era than we are right now.”
Indeed, SA boxing is enjoying its best run with the current crop of fighters – with Tete and Budler rated the best in the world in their respective divisions.
Mthalane is scheduled to make a bid to regain his IBF world flyweight title when he battles with Pakistan’s Muhammad Waseem on the undercard of Manny Pacquaio’s fight against WBA welterweight champion Lucas Matyhsse in Kuala Lumpur on July 15. Lerena also recently returned from Azerbaijan where he fought off a challenge from Roman Golovashchenko to hang on to his title.