But Moruti still has a zest for life
Rolling with the punches:
● Moruti Mthalane’s greatest defensive quality is his smile and unwavering positivity.
In the ring, the boxer can slip blows and block punches to stay out of harm’s way, but outside it he has endured batterings few have known.
Not that you’d know it from his machinegun chuckle and friendly demeanour.
Yet the IBF flyweight champion is once again staring into the abyss of uncertainty, this time the result of lockdown restrictions aimed at flattening the curve of Covid-19.
Twice before he was the victim of the ugly side of boxing, frozen out simply because he lacked the right connections despite his ability.
Mthalane, who won the IBF flyweight belt in 2009, was stripped of it in 2013 for refusing to accept the only offer on the table at the time, which would have pocketed him a miserable purse.
He was in the wilderness for five years before winning back his title in 2018, during which time he suffered two periods of inactivity, the first lasting 18 months and the second 16 months.
Mthalane, who will turn 38 in October, can hardly afford another lengthy hiatus; that would be a tragedy on top of travesty.
“It’s robbing me of crucial time,” Mthalane admitted this week. “Age is not on my side. In one to two years I’ll be done with boxing for sure.”
The clock is ticking. Mthalane, who hasn’t fought since December, may not get a shot this year.
Then he flashed that trademark smile. “But it’s the whole world. Every day I pray that they can find a cure … There’s nothing I can do. It’s not easy, but it’s easy compared to the other times I was inactive.”
He quit during his first spell on the sidelines; in 2013 he trained for three fights that were cancelled two weeks before the scheduled dates.
“My family told me not to be too hasty,” said Mthalane, a personal trainer when he’s not in full training for a defence.
Unable to also do that during lockdown, he’s considering heading to his cattle farm at Mpendle near Pietermaritzburg if restrictions are still in place by the end of June.
“I can’t just stay here doing nothing,” he told the Sunday Times in an interview at his home in a complex in the south of Johannesburg.
“If you’re a man you’ve got to go out and work.”
He no longer buys cattle for the farm, having enough to breed his own. “Farming is not an easy thing to do, it’s challenging. There are diseases and there is stock theft.”
Mthalane, who has hired hands and an uncle who help out in his absence, would also like to open up his own boxercise gym one day.
But plans of fighting are on hold for the moment.
“My dream [before the pandemic] was to get a chance to unify the world title. Maybe the WBO champion from Japan, Kosei Tanaka, or the WBC champ, Julio Cesar Martinez of Mexico.
“I believe I can beat them.”
A successful unification or two would thrust him into the centre of the hypothetical debate about SA’s greatest fighter, pound for pound, of all time.
He could have already been there ages ago: the catalogue might have read Brian Mitchell, Vuyani Bungu, Dingaan Thobela, Vic Toweel and Mthalane.
Imagine if he had not been denied five years of his championship reign?
The framed certificate of achievement that hangs proudly on his lounge wall is testament to his time on the sidelines, being given by an unknown group of boxing enthusiasts in Limpopo. He treasures it nonetheless.
The Sportsman of the Year he received at the 2019 SA Sports Awards has been his biggest recognition to date, though he’s never won the country’s Boxer of the Year award.
The married father of one, who lost his infant daughter to illness last year, has had a tougher time than most.
“My heart breaks when bad things happen to me, but some things you can’t change. If you keep worrying about things you can’t change you’ll hurt yourself.
“I like to be happy all the time.”
And his smiled returned again.
Age is not on my side. In one or two years I’ll be done with boxing for sure
Moruti Mthalane
SA boxer who will turn 38 in October