Brothers in arms
Two sets of brothers share a unique bond in the ring
Two sets of brothers with two vastly different upbringings share a unique bond. The Malajikas and the Truters both endured traumatic backgrounds and both found redemption through boxing.
For the Truters, boxing allowed them to shut the door on a childhood wrecked by an abusive father.
For the Malajikas it gave them the drive to escape the crime and poverty that flooded the streets of their youth.
Not only have the four kids conquered their demons, they are also beating their gloved opponents, proving that they are prospects with bright futures.
The Truters — Tristan, 20, and 18-yearold grade 11 pupil Cayden — are both professionals, notching up impressive wins in the past 16 days.
Ricardo Malajika, 21, is also in the paid ranks, having recently won the Gauteng junior-bantamweight title. Brother Charlton, who like Cayden is 18 and in grade 11, is a national amateur champion hoping to get to the Tokyo Olympics next year.
The Malajikas grew up poor in the rundown Johannesburg suburb of South Hills, a pit of lawlessness.
They once watched men fight each other with knives for a bottle of beer and, as small kids, stood by helplessly as an intruder stabbed their Rottweiler with a garden fork so he could gain access to their property.
During the day the house where they lived with their three older brothers and parents, renting a couple of rooms amid a throng of strangers, was quiet.
At night, drug dealers and criminals appeared out of the darkness like vampires.
A refuge
Boxing was their refuge, even on the days when they went to tournaments on empty stomachs.
“I knew it’s just God testing us,” said Ricardo, who has a three-year-old daughter with fiancée Kim Jansen. “So we’re hungry and we’ve got to go to the gym. Are we going to be lazy now? You have to work.
“It’s not about what you eat or you do, it’s about belief. There are only three people in the ring — you, your opponent and the referee, and they cannot hurt you. Only not believing can harm you.”
Charlton, who is called Miranda by family to avoid confusion with the eldest brother, Carlton, agreed. “It wasn’t easy, but we as brothers saw boxing as a way of getting out of poverty.
“It’s what we’re excellent at.”
Charlton doesn’t lack confidence. After the first round of one fight, his late coach Billy Hurford gave him a list of instructions for the second round.
When he had finished Charlton turned to him and asked: “Coach, can I go knock him out now?”
The slightly bemused Hurford replied “Ja, sure” and the young boxer did exactly that.
The Truters live in a middle-class part of Boksburg with their parents and two younger siblings, brother Jordan, eight, and sister Aliyah, five. They’re a happy family and the wisecracks fly as freely as hugs.
The man they call Dad, Johann, treats all four as his own.
It doesn’t matter that he isn’t the biological father of Tristan and Cayden.
“He’s our dad,” Tristan said of Johann. “The other one is the sperm donor.”
Tristan was three when he came to the aid of mother Anouske, knocked to the floor after a beating. The sperm donor had popped out.
Tristan put a face-cloth to his mother’s hurting face and whispered: “Mommy, it’s OK. The monster has gone.”
That was when the penny dropped for Anouske that they needed to get out, but it still took her two years to flee that hellhole.
Tristan and Cayden were five and three, but the damage had been done.
Cayden talked to no-one except Tristan. If he wanted something, he’d whisper to Tristan who would relay the message.
Both boys struggled with anger issues. “We were explosions, like little bombs,” Tristan recalled.
They got into a fight only once at school, however. It was early primary school and a boy had been hitting a girl.
Tristan stepped in, trying to end it peacefully, but Cayden stormed in from a distance, fists flying like a windmill.
“I hate that,” said Cayden. “Why does anyone want to hit a girl?”
These days Cayden is the more talkative of the two, firing off playful quips and frequently smiling, but when he spoke about the abuse of women, his face twisted into a grimace.
Tristan, a natural sportsman, discovered boxing first, and Cayden followed.
Cayden wasn’t good at sport, and he didn’t seem suited to boxing. But he stuck it out. “I pushed myself.”
His boxing quickly improved and so did his performance at other sports, particularly athletics, with him winning cross-country and middle-distance track races.
Cayden, who went on to win two national amateur championships, got good enough for trainer Harold Volbrecht to give him the ring name “Sugar Ray”, after US legend Sugar Ray Leonard.
Volbrecht dubbed the taller Tristan “Spiderman”, but the name is based on onetime lanky South African welterweight champion Spider Kelly rather than the superhero.
Tristan, who played wing for his school’s first rugby team, used to hate speaking publicly. He nearly failed grade 9 because he refused to do orals in front of the class.
“I had to beg the teacher to let him do a private speech,” said Anouske.
Tristan, holder of the stepping-stone African Boxing Union welterweight title, is now perfectly comfortable talking at press conferences.
The kids don’t stress before their own fights, although they do get nervous for each other. “I can’t watch when Tristan fights,” said Cayden, squirming to illustrate his point.
Johann got involved in training because of the boys, eventually taking out a licence to work alongside Volbrecht. He’s in their corner in fights and in life.
Brother missing
Ricardo and Charlton are proud of their father Alex, who fled Mozambique during the civil war in the early 1980s. To this day his brother is missing; Alex and his other siblings don’t know what happened to him.
Alex is a carpenter, building furniture at all hours, even when jobs are scarce. “That’s where we get our work ethic from,” said Ricardo.
But they had the advantage of an additional father figure through coach Hurford.
When they joined his amateur boxing club at the South Hills recreation centre, they couldn’t afford the affiliation fees. Hurford paid the fees out of his own pocket and Ricardo promised him he’d become the trainer’s first national champion.
Ricardo has lived up to that vow six times over the years, and Charlton four.
Hurford helped the Malajikas wherever he could, bringing water to them if their supply had been cut, or buying food.
Hurford died unexpectedly last year, but the Malajikas still want to honour his memory and family with success.
They’ve had much-needed help, but the Malajikas are also aware of what they’ve done themselves.
“I’m proud of myself,” said Ricardo. “I could have ended up anywhere, doing drugs, drinking. Some of my friends are doing drugs. It’s easy to go down that road.
“But if I did, how would I tell my kids one day that I did nothing for their future?”
It’s not about what you eat or you do, it’s about belief. There are only three people in the ring — you, your opponent and the referee, and they cannot hurt you. Only not believing can harm you Ricardo Malajika Gauteng junior-bantamweight champion Two sets of brothers from different backgrounds overcame tough beginnings to find success in the ring, writes David Isaacson