So you think you can fight?
As a boy, the new world junior flyweight champ was always a bit of a hothead. Then he learnt to walk away — unless it’s in the ring
● The first time Hekkie Budler got knocked down was outside the ring.
He and some mates were bunking school, hanging out at one of their favourite haunts, Bos Dam, better known as Albert’s Farm, in west Johannesburg.
His dad, also Hekkie, found out about the truancy and drove there in a rage, ramping the pavement and hurtling in the direction of the boys chilling on the grass.
“They all ran away,” says Budler jnr, 30. “My luck! It was my dad who caught us, so I couldn’t run. Everyone else got away.
“He was angry — he hit me. That was the first time I went down. He slapped me and I fell. That was the only time he hit me.”
Budler snr remembers that well. “I cried after hitting him. He didn’t cry; I did,” he says. His wife, Karin, nods in agreement.
Budler snr was in tears again after his son took the world junior flyweight crown in Japan last month, lifting the World Boxing Association and International Boxing Federation titles as well as the Ring magazine belt reserved for unified champions.
The skinny teen who loved to punch
For all the waterworks, Budler snr was a tough guy back in his day.
An amateur boxer, he liked riding with his motorbiking chums and displaying his fighting skills in the clubs.
Short like his son, he was mostly outsized, and he didn’t mind being outnumbered. Heck, the more the merrier.
That was long before junior arrived. “We went to a market once and we bumped into a guy selling biking jackets, who remembered my dad from then,” says Budler jnr.
“He told us: ‘You know your dad, he used to fight the okes. I had to take him off three big guys once.’ ”
Budler snr didn’t want his son following in his footsteps.
“I was strict on Hekkie, I didn’t want him to be like me,” he says.
Still, the apple didn’t fall far from the tree. The hair-trigger temper was there, and the youngster was always ready to rumble.
A short, skinny teenager who liked boxing, Budler jnr was a target for bigger kids at school and on the streets of the working-class suburb of Newlands where they lived.
“They used to chirp me, you know, something like, ‘So you think you can fight?’ I’m also a bit of a hothead.
“[But] when I won my first South African [amateur] title, I realised maybe my dad was right, maybe I do have a future in this sport. That’s when I realised I needed to stop fighting outside the ring and walk away.
“And I realised it’s easy to walk away.”
He’s avoiding the hullaballoo around his victory in Japan, which has earned him some firsts in South African boxing, placing him among the pantheon of greats.
He’s now amassed more world-title belts than any other local boxer, a total of six when you add the
WBA and International Boxing Organisation titles he once held in the lighter strawweight division, as well as his first world crown, the IBO junior flyweight title.
Deduct his two marginal IBO belts and his four bona fide belts are also more than any other South African has managed. Dingaan Thobela won three, Brian Mitchell two.
Budler is only the second South African to have won a Ring belt since Vic Toweel, the country’s only undisputed world champion.
The champ stays humble
There’s been some heated debate about Budler’s standing among the pantheon of greats. There are people, including his dad, who think he’s the greatest of them all.
Opinion is split, but the champion just shrugs. “I don’t care. Am I better than Brian Mitchell or Vic Toweel? It actually doesn’t bother me. I’m just doing what I’m doing,” he says as I drive him to an afternoon TV interview in Randburg. “I don’t care if they’re better than I am. I don’t think about it.”
Outside the Kwesé studio, a few employees approach for selfies, and Budler happily obliges. The security official manning the reception desk, however, doesn’t recognise him.
“I’m the boxer. My manager [Colin Nathan, who hadn’t arrived at that stage] said I’m doing an interview. I don’t know who with.”
The official looks blank, then asks tentatively: “You’re here to fix what?”
Budler’s wife of nearly four years, Roxy, remembers a similar situation when she was pulled over, with him in the passenger seat, by metro police in a routine roadblock.
“I said I was on my way to the shops, so the officer said: ‘So you’re taking your younger brother shopping?’
“Hekkie wasn’t impressed,” Roxy, who turns 27 in August, adds with a laugh. “But when people recognise him, they mostly say: ‘But you’re so small.’ ”
She says his humility is his most endearing quality. “He doesn’t think he’s better than anybody.
“Even if he doesn’t know you from a bar of soap, like when fans come up to him and that, he’ll talk to them.
“And he always gives back to the amateurs. He goes to their tournaments and visits. He’ll do anything for them.”
He has an eye for the ordinary man. Returning home, Budler spots a hawker at a traffic light on Bram Fischer Drive. “That guy used to work near UJ [University of Johannesburg], then he worked at two or three other lights near there. Now he’s here — he gets around, hey.”
Diving for snakes
The couple live in their house in Newlands, just 180m from Budler’s parents. Roxy’s mom lives in their outside cottage.
“People have asked me why we don’t live in Sandton,” says Budler. “People think I’m a multimillionaire because I’m a world champion.” He shakes his head.
“But I like it here. Everyone knows each other. We all look out for each other. There’s crime, but there’s crime everywhere.”
“I’m happy where we are,” Roxy confirms. “If we have kids and need a bigger place, then we might buy another house.”
They have a bond on their house, and they’re still paying off Roxy’s car. “We could have got a R2-million mansion, but I like to budget, budget, budget,” says Roxy. “We first stayed with Hekkie’s parents to save a deposit for the house. We don’t like debt.”
The two are talking about buying a new car for Hekkie once hers is paid off; his old Audi A3 has seen better days.
The couple separately apologise for the state of the couches in their lounge, ravaged by their three dogs, although more by the two bull terriers — Champ and China — than Cheeky the chihuahua.
They put burglar bars on the inside after China once dived through the street-facing window to get at a passing pedestrian.
China, the bitch, is Budler’s and Champ is Roxy’s. “But they’re both hers,” he says. “If we’re playing around and she hits me, they lie there and watch. But if I push her down, they growl at me.”
Many might not think the dogs are as terrifying as the snakes Budler used to have, which included an anaconda and six pythons.
When I interviewed him early in his career, he let some loose in the pool and then dived in to fetch them. Nathan, the trainer with whom Budler turned professional in 2007, and I stood back with trepidation. He never attempted to taunt us with them.
Budler later gave them away. “It cost too much to keep them. Feeding them, the price of rabbits!”
Budler has another interview in the evening, this time with SAfm at the SABC building in nearby Auckland Park.
Roxy wants to come along and asks what time they need to leave, but Budler doesn’t respond as he taps away on his phone.
“Answer me!” she demands.
“I don’t know,” he says.
“How can you not know?”
Budler continues on his phone, and Roxy walks over to him, puts her hands on his throat and playfully shakes him, demanding an answer.
“You see!” says Budler. “She does hit me.”
“I didn’t hit him,” Roxy insists. “I choked him.”
Later, Budler and Nathan are in the studio, with Roxy and me listening from outside.
Budler is asked what they do for fun. “We walk the dogs.”
“Liar!” replies Roxy, turning to me with a smile: “They walk us.”
During a brief break in the interview, Budler and Roxy wave and blow kisses through the soundproof glass divider.
At a later stage, Budler is asked some personal questions.
What’s his favourite meal? “Lasagne or steak,” says Roxy before Budler confirms her answer on air.
His favourite colour? “Red,” she says. “Black and red,” he replies.
Favourite movie? “Braveheart.” On the money again.
About four years ago, I interviewed five brothers, all amateur boxers, talented but poor. There were few belongings in the bedroom that some of them shared, but one of the posters on the wall was of Budler.
Hekkie Budler may well not be the greatest South African boxer of all time, but those kids couldn’t have picked a better role model.
When people recognise him, they mostly say: ‘But you’re so small!’