Osborne “Big Daddy” Machimana is without a doubt one of South Africa’s better heavyweight champions but, rather sadly, overweight and out of condition he has carried on too long and tarnished his career.
Looking through the list of champions since James Robertson Couper from Edinburgh, Scotland, who was the first claimant of the South African title, after he stopped Joe Coverwell in the second round in Kimberley on 12 July 1884. It was reported as being for the South African heavyweight title.
Throughout the years there have been fighters like Jimmy Dixon (won title in third fight). Ezekiel Dlamini (won title in third fight), Watty Muller (won title in third fight) and Nick van den Bergh, who won the title in his first fight and lost it in his second fight.
Machimana was head and shoulders better than the aforementioned fighters and many others.
Born in Tzaneen in the Limpopo Province on 29 September 1978, he was an outstanding amateur and won the super heavyweight championships in 1999 and 2000 before making his pro debut on 14 November 2000 at the Carnival City in Brakpan, with a first-round knockout win at 58 seconds into the first round against Jacob Lolwane.
He won his next four fights before fighting to a draw against Baldwin Hlongwane and, in his next fight, at the Orient Theatre in East London on 11 May 2002, in a real slugfest, he was stopped in the tenth round by Anton Nel, in a challenge for the South African heavyweight title.
He won four of his next five fights before beating Nel on a fifth-round knockout in a rematch to win the South African heavyweight title.
On 20 October 2006 he stopped Wiseman Dlomo in the seventh round to retain the South African title after losing two fights on points overseas.
As an above-average heavyweight he was in demand overseas, having travelled to England and America. In December 2006 he met the promising Shane Cameron (16-0) in Christchurch, New Zealand, for the WBA Pan African and IBF Pan Pacific heavyweight titles, but was stopped in the ninth round.
After returning home he retained the South African heavyweight title with wins over Jake Els (tko 5) and Pieter Cronje (ko 7) before he was matched with the former South African, WBU and WBO heavyweight champion, Corrie Sanders on 2 February 2008 in a non-title fight.
Sanders, who has a strong claim to being South Africa’s greatest heavyweight of all time was well past his best and was stopped at 2 minutes 41 seconds into the first round.
Machimana retained the South African heavyweight title on two occasions against Miyan Solomons, losing to Joseph Ghingangu (tko 7) in between these two fights in a clash for the African Boxing Union heavyweight title.
He then travelled to England and was stopped in the third round by David Price in a Commonwealth heavyweight title eliminator.
At this stage he was well past his best but still managed to win five of nine fights, which included regaining the South African heavyweight title with a points win over Justice Siliga in a clash for the vacant title.
On 23 February 2018 at the Emerald Casino in Vanderbijlpark, weighing in the region of 135 kg he defended the South African title against Ruann Visser and was stopped in the seventh round.
However, the fight was declared a no contest after Visser was stripped of the title for failing a blood/urine test.
This was not the end of this once fine fighter, who was grossly overweight and just became cannon fodder, being smashed to defeat overseas by Tshibuabua Kalonga (ko 3) and weighing in at a flabby 146 kg, he was no condition to go in against the big punching 30-year-old southpaw , Zhan Kossobutskiv (ko 1).
He then lost inside the distance to Bogdan Dinu (ko 4) and Danila Semeno (ko 1).
In his last fight on 12 June 2021, at the age of nearly 43, he was knocked out in the third round by Sergey Kharitonov in Belarus to finish with a record of 23-15-2; 17.
Machimana has the distinction of being involved in 12 South African heavyweight title fights, which is possibly more than any other South African heavyweight champion, and also in a number of regional titles.
The sad part is that, having suffered knockouts when he was not in condition and at an advanced age in boxing terms, there is the possibility of damage.
For anyone who cares about boxing there is a dark and distressing side to boxing and this is where we need stricter control of fighters who go on too long or leave the country to be fed as just an opponent to pad the records of up and coming fighters.