A defining night of boxing
While the concept may not be an entirely novel one, and as intermittently as they may be staged this impressive card aptly named 4@War features a “tournament within a tournament”.
The Golden Gloves headlinebout at Emperor’s Palace, scheduled for 10 rounds between two unbeaten champions Nicholas Radley (above, light heavyweight) and Rowan Campbell (super middleweight) at catchweight (78.4kg) is enough to turn heads on its own and is a gamble for both fighters.
The ever-improving Campbell has reached a watershed point in his career in what should be his toughest assignment yet against Radley, a tall, rangy former K1 and MMA fighter from Cape Town with a very high knockout ratio.
Campbell is developing into a very accomplished boxer-fighter and improves with every fight.
The same applies to the respective careers of African Boxing Union (ABU) South junior bantamweight champion Mnqobi Mkhize and hot prospect Ricardo Malajika.
Barring a draw, only one of the two will remain unbeaten with the former’s fledgling ABU strap on the line.
With both boxers boasting unblemished professional records in different divisions there has been a popular payoff line coined since this bout was announced “Someone’s 0 (zero) has to go”.
The 4@War junior middleweight tournament is a pundits’ nightmare to call and forms part of a fascinating sub-plot to the broader story.
That probably explains why Golden Gloves threw a sizeable R1.8 million purse at this fourman semifinal shootout featuring Tristan Truter, Boyd Allen, Brandon Thysse and Roarke Knapp.
ABU south welterweight champion Truter steps between the ropes against unbeaten former MMA exponent Allen in the first semi and Thysse will mix it with Knapp in the other with both scraps scheduled for 10 rounds.
Each fighter – win or lose – will be guaranteed R200 000 tonight.
The two winners, however, have a huge R750 000 carrot dangling in front of their noses when the final is staged in March next year, with a 60/40 split in favour of the winner, and a commemorative diamond ring thrown in as well.
In what amounts to what would be a 3/4th place playoff in a team sports context, the two losers are also pencilled in to face one another for a R250 000 purse split.