Mick Cleary meets Brian Mitchell, the trainer=20 championing Soweto’s ghetto blasters
BRIAN MITCHELL drives a white top-of-the-range Corvette=20 sports car. There are many places you might choose to=20 park it in Johannesburg at night. The suburb of=20 Booysens is not one of them. But there, on the main=20 road to Soweto, alongside the shuttered windows, barred=20 shop fronts and windswept, debris-strewn building=20 sites, stands Mitchell’s pride and joy. It’s a sitting=20 target for any of the city’s army of muggers and=20 thieves. But some battles just aren’t worth fighting,=20 not even for the vicious marauding gangs of this=20 shadowy city.
Mitchell is no ordinary resident, and the parking lot=20 no ordinary venue. A few yards from the Corvette,=20 Mitchell’s other pride and joy gleams in the evening=20 twilight. The Nashua Academy of Boxing, a custom-built=20 gym opened just a few months ago, is owned, run and=20 funded largely out of Mitchell’s own pockets. It was=20 Mitchell’s idea, and the bright, clean, functional,=20 well-equipped interior very much reflects the man. “I’d=20 seen enough dingy, crumbling gyms in my days on the=20 road,” says Mitchell. “I wanted something different,=20 the best of its kind.”
Despite the dispiriting surroundings, it was difficult=20 to disagree with Mitchell’s assessment. It was perhaps=20 no real surprise, for excellence has long been the only=20 currency Mitchell has traded in. Now aged 33, he made=20 12 defences of the WBA junior lightweight title, a=20 record for the division, retiring undefeated as=20 champion in 1991 after beating Tony “The Tiger” Lopez=20 in 1991 in a unification IBF bout.
Mitchell, who recently attempted and quickly aborted a=20 comeback, was the first South African to hold two world=20 crowns. In 1989 the British Boxing Board of Control=20 voted him best overseas boxer. His hope now is that he=20 loses his mantle as South Africa’s most famous son of=20 the ring as soon as possible.
“There are guys here at the moment with the potential=20 to go all the way,” says Mitchell, short, trim, clean- cut and … white. Quite what colour his putative=20 successor will be is a matter of no importance to him:=20 “The lads who are invited here are selected on their=20 merit, not their skin.
“I could have built the gym up in the safe, comfortable=20 northern suburbs,” says Mitchell. “But I would have had=20 safe, comfortable kids coming along. Here we’re five=20 minutes from Soweto. Our professional boxers are 90=20 percent black as it is. The sport, because of its=20 appeal round the world, has always been popular among=20 the blacks. Now we’ve got to make sure that more kids=20 get the opportunity to box.
“Boxing, in fact, has a great tradition down this way,=20 which is a harder, rough-edged part of town. The=20 security doesn’t worry me one bit. I carry a handgun,=20 but so do most people I know. The stories about crime=20 are exaggerated. There may be a lot of it about, but=20 that doesn’t mean you’re going to get a gang wielding=20 AK47s charging in here at any moment.”
Mitchell has a stable of 15 fighters, of mixed colours=20 and backgrounds. Three of them had their first=20 professional outing recently, and all won on knock- outs. Mitchell’s concern is not to nurture from the=20 gutter; rather he hopes to talent-spot those already=20 schooled in the basics and then, as they approach the=20 requisite age for a profesional licence, 19, take them=20 under his wing.
“I was recently offered silly money to extend my=20 comeback and fight on a Sun City bill in August,” says=20 Mitchell. “But you can’t pretend in the ring. Though=20 I’ve still got the legs and lungs for it, my hunger has=20 gone. Getting off the stool to fight when you’re not=20 really up to it is a dangerous thing to do no matter=20 how many dollars are on the table. And so I hit on this=20 scheme. I could have done many things, all of them more=20 commerically viable than this. But my heart and soul is=20 boxing, and helping the youngsters is more emotionally=20 satisfying than picking up a few fat cheques as a=20
Mitchell was putting Leonard Steyn, a young=20 bantamweight, through some furious paces on the night=20 of our visit. Steyn, he reckons, will soon be tilting=20 for high honours. So too Anthony van Niekerk and=20 Michael Shultz, who are soon to be thrust into a bright=20 spotlight. And a South African one at that. Mitchell=20 never had the satisfaction of fighting for a world=20 title on home soil. In the apartheid years he was=20 obliged to flit round the globe to make defences — the=20 Elephant and Castle in November 1988, where he beat Jim=20 McDonnell — and in the mid-Eighties, when criticism of=20 the regime was at its most virulent, he fought out of=20 San Diego.
You quickly feel Mitchell’s sense of loss, for he is a=20 staunch South African. “Fighting abroad hurt, I can=20 tell you,” he says. “But I’ve come to realise that=20 there was a need for sporting sanctions. There were=20 terrible wrongs, but now we’ve been accepted back I=20 feel very proud. We’re a great nation and there are=20 great times ahead.”
If zeal and ambition could illuminate the way, then the=20 road to Soweto would be the best-lit highway in South=20