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Mandela the boxer
16 May 2003
Nelson Mandela, who took some heavy blows but got up off the canvas to give apartheid the knockout punch, will receive an honorary induction into the Boxing World Hall of Fame.
South Africa's former president, who turns 85 this year, has been unanimously voted into the gallery by the Hall of Fame's board of directors, who have reportedly written a letter of congratulation to Mandela, although the date for their annual banquet has not yet been set.
Duane Moodley, chief executive of US film company Imagine That, told journalists in Johannesburg this week: "I approached the board of the Hall of Fame and told them that they may have the great Joe Louis, Muhammad Ali and Sugar Ray Robinson, but they have not inducted the greatest champion of all time.
"They demanded to know who was I talking about and when I told them Nelson Mandela, who laced up gloves to KO apartheid in a fashion that will never be duplicated in his lifetime, they said,
'fantastic'."
Moodley's company brought American actor Will Smith to South Africa last year and has a working relationship with the Nelson Mandela Children's Fund. Mandela accompanied Smith - who played Muhammed Ali in the biopic "Ali" - to Carnival City in Brakpan to watch South African boxing great Jacob "Baby Jake" Matlala make his last ring appearance.
According to the SA Press Association, if Mandela accepts the invitation, he will receive a special belt symbolising peace and liberty at the annual Banquet of Champions in Los Angeles, to which over 60 renowned boxers are invited.
'I was never an outstanding boxer'
Mandela was a keen boxer in his youth, and although he never took part in organised tournaments, he used to train at the Donaldson Orlando Community Centre (DOCC) in Orlando, Soweto. He joined the DOCC's boxing club in the early 1950s, training there almost every weekday evening with his son, Thembekile.
(The
photo on the right shows Mandela sparring with the club's star boxer of the time, Jerry Moloi. Drum photographer Bob Gosani took the photo on the rooftop of South African Associated Newspapers' office in Johannesburg.)
World heavyweight champion Lennox Lewis, in Johannesburg to fight Hasim Rahman in 2001, gets some pointers from Mandela. Lewis lost the Rahman bout, but won the return match the following year. (Photo: Irish-Boxing.com)
In his autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom, Mandela writes: "I would go home directly after work, pick up Thembi, then drive to the community centre ... We each took turns leading the training sessions in order to develop leadership, initiative and self-confidence.
"Things would get a bit rough for me on the nights that my son
was in charge, for he would single me out for criticism ... When he saw me loafing, he would say in a stern voice, 'Mister Mandela, you are wasting our time this evening. If you cannot keep up, why not go home and sit with the old women.' Everyone enjoyed these jibes immensely, and it gave me pleasure to see my son so happy and confident."
Mandela writes that he was "never an outstanding boxer. I was in the heavyweight division, and I had neither enough power to compensate for my lack of speed nor enough speed to make up for my lack of power.
"I did not enjoy the violence of boxing so much as the science of it. I was intrigued by how one moved one's body to protect oneself, how one used a strategy both to attack and retreat, how one paced oneself over a match.
"Boxing is egalitarian. In the ring, rank, age, colour, and wealth are irrelevant. When you are circling your opponent, probing his strengths and weaknesses, you are not thinking about his colour or social
status.
"I never did any real fighting after I entered politics. My main interest was in training; I found the rigorous exercise to be an excellent outlet for tension and stress. After a strenuous workout, I felt both mentally and physically lighter.
"It was a way of losing myself in something that was not the struggle. After an evening's workout I would wake up the next morning feeling strong and refreshed, ready to take up the fight again."
SouthAfrica.info reporter
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