Boxing brothers KO a life of hardship
Fighting Malajikas use their fists to rise above their cheerless surroundings, writes David Isaacson
THEY live among thugs and drug dealers in one of Johannesburg’s blue-collar suburbs, but manage to beat the odds and defeat their opponents in the ring. Meet five brothers who know how to box clever.
The Malajikas are all amateur boxers who train at the South Hills Recreation Centre, in the southeast of Johannesburg, where their passion for the sport makes up for the lack of proper facilities.
For every training session, the fighters must erect a makeshift ring and put up punchbags stored in the basement.
The brothers hone their skills further at home, a neglected house where individual rooms are rented out to families.
Sometimes there is not enough money for food, but even with empty stomachs, the five siblings still train.
It sounds like a recipe for failure, but these brothers are creating their own success story.
Second-oldest Louis, 20, claimed the Gauteng senior 52kg title in Pretoria last weekend to win a ticket to the South African championships in Tzaneen next month. Victory there will take him another step closer to his goal of boxing for South Africa.
Louis, who is employed by the Active Church, where he plays the guitar and works on the website, was one of the two runners-up for best boxer of the Gauteng tournament, but he readily admits he is not the best boxer in the family.
Ricardo, 15, has already won two age-group South African championships and was proclaimed best boxer of the tournament on both occasions.
Dino, 18, a matric pupil on scholarship at the Dominican Convent School, believes 13year-old Miranda could be the best of the bunch.
“We all have our strong points,” he said.
Louis uses his reach well, Ricardo is quick and slippery, and Dino carries power.
“Miranda has learnt the best from us. He is probably the most talented — our Floyd Mayweather.”
Miranda was the first to catch my eye at a tournament in Pretoria in March. When the opening bell sounded, he threw a cocky smile and a taunting head nod at his opponent.
Then his face went deadpan and he went to war, starting with a lead right to the head.
When his foe tried retaliating, he calmly slipped his punches
If it wasn’t for boxing and our church, we would be on drugs
and countered with accurate, hard blows.
It was a massacre — within 40 seconds of the opening bell, the opposing corner threw in the towel.
Although he is the oldest, Carlton, 22, is the least experienced of the brothers, but that is because he lost a few years to drug addiction.
“It’s easy to get drugs in our neighbourhood,” said Carlton, who has been clean for several months.
“It’s R50 for a half-bag of crystal, cat and rocks. Coke is about R350 for a bag. They don’t sell half-bags of coke.
“If it wasn’t for boxing and our church, we would be on drugs.”
He was the first brother to start boxing. The others followed him to the gym.
Dad Alex, a self-employed carpenter who fled the civil war in Mozambique in 1983 after a cousin and an aunt had been shot dead by Renamo rebels, was never a boxer.
Although he is now divorced from their mother, Joan, he lives in the same house. The small room he shares with Carlton, Ricardo and Miranda, which they rent forR2 000 a month, has a single bed, a small TV, all the brothers’ boxing trophies and some fight photos on the wall.
The double mattress leaning against the wall, which would cover most of the floor space, comes down only at bedtime.
They are a close-knit family, but they admit that some of the other tenants have had unsavoury friends.
“There have been gunshots here. We’ve been raided by the police like 10 times in the three, four years we’ve lived here,” said Carlton, who works with his dad.
Gangsters have tried hiding stolen cars in their driveway. “We’ve had helicopters flying overhead,” said Louis. “I’ve seen people getting arrested in our house.
“The problem is that the neighbours think we are responsible for this. Things calmed down this year after we spoke to those tenants about their friends. We get on with our neighbours now.”
Mom Joan is proud of her children. “I always showed them love,” she said, adding the naughtiest was Carlton.
South Hills club head coach Billy Hurford has lived in the area his whole life and seen it decline.
As a child in the 1970s, he and his mates played in the streets until well after sundown. “Not any more,” he said. “It’s not safe. I don’t want the kids walking home after dark. If I’m training late, I will take the kids back home if their parents can’t pick them up.
“On Fridays and Saturdays, it’s particularly dangerous. They’re looking for people who have just got their wages,” said
We’ve been raided by the police like 10 times in three, four years
Hurford, who learnt to box at the same club.
He achieved the pinnacle of his own pugilistic career in the military in 1988. He made the final of a South African Defence Force tournament in Grootfontein in the then South West Africa, going up against an air force lieutenant.
“My RSM [sergeant-major] told me if I knocked him out, I would get extra leave. I knocked him out in the first round and I got a three-week pass. That was lekker.”
But his proudest achievement has been as a coach at the club, where 95% of his boxers are disadvantaged.
“There was one guy who was a drug runner. I took him off the streets and made him a Gauteng champion. He hasn’t boxed for five years, but he’s still clean.”
One of his biggest challenges is arranging fights for the boxers. He transports the youngsters to tournaments at weekends, but there is no guarantee they will get action.
The grading system — which rates amateur boxers in six categories, from novice red to blue, green, bronze and silver and then gold, which is reserved for South African champions and national team members — makes matchmaking difficult.
I went along to a show at the nearby Booysens club, one of the most famous amateur establishments in Johannesburg.
Gold Ricardo and blue Mi- randa, who is soon to move up to green, had to sit out; Dino and Carlton got fights and won convincingly.
Ricardo is the most experienced with 25 fights, followed by Louis on 22, but even they are way behind the curve, sometimes facing opponents with 50 or more fights to their credit.
“We have to travel to Pretoria and Boksburg to try to get fights,” said Carlton.
Miranda, with just 12 bouts to his name, will face a dramatic step up in class when he competes at the Gauteng schools’ championships later this year.
“It costs money to travel,” said Hurford, who stages fundraising events for the club, such as the tournament featuring the Malajika brothers that he is planning for June 28.
Another reason for the lack of action, he said, was their growing reputation.
“When they see the Malajikas, they get scared.”