Resuscitate boxing from its self-induced canvass coma

Here is a simple quiz for you: “Who is South Africa’s world boxing champion?”

Many would scratch their heads to answer this. But they can be exonerated. It’s a cryptic puzzle.

Such is the appalling state of South Africa’s boxing. Gone are the days when South Africans could mention the country’s world class boxer in any division deep in their slumber in the still of the night. Vuyani Bungu Welcome Ncita, Brian Mitchell, Dingaan “The Rose of Soweto” Thobela….

The sport in the country, some pundits have argued, was buried with the likes of the late Corrie Sanders and Baby Jake Matlala. They allude to the current dearth of role models who can inspire aspirant boxers. And, to a large degree, they might have a valid point.

In the 1990s, notwithstanding the relatively meagre corporate sponsorship, boxing structures used to churn out prospects, and there was always a fat chance that amongst them would emerge world-class sensations.

Strangely, the dawn of the new millennium appears to have induced the sport into a coma. Since the golden generation of Baby Jake and Dingaan exited the scene, there has been no one convincing enough to fill the void. With the exception to the rule that is Philip Ndou, who was famously knocked down by Floyd Mayweather in the sixth round, there has only been a fleeting presence of boxing champions without the requisite staying power.

At this point, in effect the sporting code is at a cul-de-sac, headed nowhere. Now, boxers have to wait for as long as six months to have a lucrative fight. This has removed any incentive for youth to view it as an alternative career path to soccer.

From, debatably, the second most popular sport, derisorily, boxing seems to have been reduced to competing for fans with netball. Who is the country’s most popular netballer?

At its zenith, boxing afforded people in black townships income as sparing partners, trainers, promoters and run gyms where future stars were made. It might have been much then, but it made some eke a living.

All the same, does boxing have any fighting chance of reversing itself from an apparent terminal decline? An inquisition is due.

Irrefutably, just like the field has become to its richer cousin, soccer, the ring only brutally exposes the rot that can be traced from top of boxing’s administrative hierarchy.

For sure, boxing is making a loud clarion call to be fixed, and urgently at that.