While great achievements have been taking place within the boxing ring in South Africa, the social chain reaction outside it has been perhaps even more significant.
In the 1970s and 1980s, human relations got off to a good start and fighters no longer judged their opponents according to the colour of their skin. Boxing heroes were more tolerant of one another perhaps than the rest of society. A common feature of black and white boxers in South Africa is their deep religious conviction.
The 1980s can really be described as a golden decade for boxing. With Gerrie Coetzee (WBA) Brian Mitchell (WBA), Welcome Ncita (IBF) and Dingaan Thobela (WBO), ironically a white and two black boxers, world champions in the junior lightweight, junior featherweight and lightweight divisions respectively
December 1, 1984 - Sun City, Bophuthatswana
A well-conditioned Piet Crous hampered by a badly cut eye showed courage as he outboxed a weight-weakened Ossie Ocasio over fifteen uninteresting rounds to become the new WBA junior heavyweight champion at Sun City.
September 22, 1990 - Brownsville, Texas, USA
South African Dingaan Thobela became the new WBO lightweight champion when he scored a split-decision win over Mexican Mauricio Aceves in front of 1500 fans at the International Convention Centre. Thobela floored the defending champion in the first round with a left and right to the head but the bell sounded midway through the eight count. Thobela did well to hold on as Aceves came back strongly in the middle rounds with a concentrated body attack.
March 10, 1990 - Tel Aviv, Israel
In a competent tactical performance, Welcome Ncita became the first South African to hold an IBF title when he scored a clear-cut 12-round points decision over French Jew Fabrice Benichou, to take the junior featherweight title. The strong but crude Benichou never got to grips with his faster and taller rival who had a game plan and stuck to it throughout the 12 rounds.
August 20, 1994 - Carousel, Hammanskraal, South Africa
In one of the best performances by a South African in a world title fight, Vuyani Bungu scored a unanimous 12-round points decision over American Kennedy McKinney to win the IBF junior featherweight title. Bungu had most of the fight his own way, puffing up the champion’s eye by the sixth round as he stuck to his game plan by fighting out of a crouch to avoid McKinney's educated jab and ran out a clear winner after 12 absorbing rounds.
Gone were the days when side stakes were provided by the mining magnates of emergent Johannesburg alone. Having scored a political breakthrough, black fighters became the social, but also the financial beneficiaries of the new era. Large companies vied with one another to provide sponsorship, as boxing was now the number one individual sport in black townships. Since 1977 boxers keenly competed for the coveted Old Buck Belts, awarded to all national champions. The early history of black boxing is regrettably rather vague and incomplete because of discrimination by the government which persisted until 1976.
Amateur boxing began on the diamond fields in the 1880s when the founder of the De Beers diamond monopoly, Barney Barnato, established an amateur boxing club in 1878. The African mine workers were interested in these bare-knuckle fights on the mines. They watched the fights but did not take up the sport.
The Coloured author Peter Abraham’s in his autobiography Tell Freedom mentions witnessing a bare-fist amateur fight taking place in Sixteenth Street, Vrededorp in the 1920s.
In his book My Baby and Me Benny Singh writes that non-European boxing in Durban began in 1903 with one Jimmy O’Brien being the first South African non-European professional boxer. However, it is unclear when the first black boxing matches took place in South Africa.
Boxing was one of the main sports organised by the Bantu Men’s Sports Club. Apart from the BMSC, American Board Missionaries also introduced boxing in the townships. Boys Clubs were formed to encourage boys to keep ‘good company’ and ‘not run wild on the streets’. Gilbert “KKK” Moloi also ran a boxing club at a local YMCA
One of the earliest clubs was the St Mary’s Boys Club in Orlando, Soweto. It was at this club that Jake Tuli, who won the Empire flyweight title in 1952, learned to box.
In June 1951 it was reported in The African Drum that the Ferreiratown’s Frisco Kids Boxing Club was created by Phineaus K. Sebiloane, a successful local boxer from the 1920s.
During the 1940s and 1950s, Boys Clubs like Dougall Hall Boys Club in Marabastad, the New Mai Mai Boxing Club at the Bantu Mens Sports Club, and the G-Man Boxing Club in Sophiatown were opened. There were also active amateur clubs like Denver Brown Bombers Boxing Club, Yanks Boxing Club, Orphiton Boxing Club, Bull and Bush Boxing Club, Allons Boxing Club and Pals Boys Club in Alexander.
Other clubs that attracted attention were Goodwill B.C, Frisco Kids Boxing Club, Jabavu B.C., Phefeni B.C, Home D. Boxing Club, Blue Mountain Boxing Club, Jubilee Centre Boxing Club and Renegade Boxing Club drew reasonable crowds but not to the extent of the BMSC.
It was reported that the first amateur tournament at the BMSC for “non-Europeans” took place in 1929 and on March 17, 1951, a tournament that featured 20 bouts and drew a crowd of 500 made up of both white and black men and women.In 1931 the BMSC appointed a boxing trainer for the first time and during the Second World War, William “Baby Batter” Mbatha, who subsequently won the South African non-European lightweight and welterweight titles, became an instructor there.
The BMSC boxing club really took off with “Jolting Joe’ Maseko as a paid boxing instructor.
In the 1950s Maseko campaigned with success in the United Kingdom and also won the South African non-European middleweight and light heavyweight titles.
The first Bull and Bush Club in the Transvaal was started by William Dixon in a yard in Alexandra Street, between Main and Fox Streets, in the Malay Camp. Charlie Timm took over the club in 1939 and produced some outstanding young fighters.
The Allons Amateur Boxing Club originated in 1949 when Isaac Davis decided to start an amateur boxing club in his own backyard. From this humble beginning and with the help of men like Billy le Roux and Claude Bindeman the club produced fighters like Leslie Tangee and Richard Borias who became South African champions in the professional ring.
The first recognised non-white professional champion on record was Sonny Thomas who knocked out Battling Shabane in Cape Town on October 2, 1946 to win the vacant South African non- European lightweight title.
However, there was also a report in a Cape Town newspaper that on September 23, 1904 a J. Morris fought Long Sarel for the coloured middleweight championship of South Africa, which could possibly lay claim to the first non-white SA championship could fight.
Also on January 3, 1913 Mannie Hommel beat Walle Muller on points over 20 rounds in Port Elizabeth in a fight billed as the SA Coloured heavyweight title and in 1922 Harry Appal knocked out Young Sadow in a bout billed for the SA non-white lightweight title.
Non-white professional boxing in the Transvaal got off to a slow start with only three tournaments in 1948 and one in 1949. What was claimed to be the first non-European professional fight to be staged in the Transvaal was at the Bantu Men's Social Centre on March 13, 1948 between flyweights Joel ‘Fly’ Mohahleli from Evaton and One Round Hank. Unfortunately Mohlahleli, after being ahead on points, collapsed in the fifth round. He was taken to hospital having sustained a subdural haematoma. His parents refused to allow the doctors to operate and he was treated according to local tribal customs at home. Unfortunately he never fully recovered and remained disabled.
Some of the areas where Black boxing thrived in the early years were Beatrice Street in Durban, Sharpeville, Sebokeng, Mdantsane, Mangaung, Motse-Thabong, Galeshewe and Gugulethu in Cape Town and Soweto near Johannesburg.
Among the most popular venues at the time were Soweto's Jabulani Amphitheatre, Moroka Jabavu Stadium, and Mofolo Hall which was burnt down during the 1976 uprising, Kagiso Hall in Krugersdorp, Ramosa Hall in Mohlakeng, Mdantsane’s Sisa Dukashe Stadium and the Orient Theatre in East London.
Some of the promoters who operated at these venues were Obedia Khazamula, Richard Motsunyane, Ike Nkumane, Abe Mohamane, Jackson Morley, Gladstone Nhlapo, Hunter Motsumi, and Marcus “Bob Arum” Nkosi, Phil Makhetha, John “Don King” Khambule, Sy Mbonani, Sy “Big Ben” Mashinini, Joe Gumede, Joe Padisho and many others.