Late bloomer: Bungu can add to belated acclaim against
BOXING: Gavin Evans
VUYANI “The Beast” Bungu is a young man who was groomed to be one of life’s worthy supporting acts, and yet has somehow risen to the foothills of fame, fortune and more than a dollup of mass acclaim.
Of all South Africa’s boxing champions since the days of Vic Toweel it’s hard to find one whose arrival was less expected than Bungu’s. Not that he was ever anything other than an extremely capable fighter, and a first class South African champion, it’s just that he had for so long been typecaste in the role of the loyal sparring partner for the brilliant but fragile Welcome
Ncita had the flair, the panache, the dazzling speed, the lip. In comparison Bungu seemed little more than a tough, dogged, hard-hitting trier, even when he joined his Mdantsane stablemate in the International Boxing Federation’s junior featherweight world rankings.
Then, last year, their fortunes changed. Ncita was beaten for the second time by Kennedy McKinney, and Bungu was given a shot at the American’s title. No-one gave him the slightest chance against a man rated by all the United States trade magazines as one of the 10 best fighters, “pound for pound” in the whole wide world, but at least “The Beast” was finally getting a decent pay day.
In sparring before the fight the erstwhile understudy gave notice of his intentions by flattening Ncita, and then went on to pound out a shockingly easy points decision over McKinney. They say styles make fights, and Bungu’s constant pressure and rapid-fire tattoo of head and body blows did the trick.
Since then he’s successfully defended his title once, walked off with the annual South African Boxer of the Year award, and has, by default, increased his status to become this country’s sole world boxing champion following Baby Jake Matlala’s demise last month.
In Mdantsane, and the Border area generally, he is already a major sporting hero, mobbed on the dusty streets by local youths and adored by their parents for the honest, gritty way he goes about his painful business. It’s a status that Ncita — whose international rise happened at a time when sporting sanctions were still in operation — never quite
“The kids just love Vuyani, and they see in him something they can aspire to,” says Mzi Mnguni, manager and trainer of Bungu, Ncita and scores of other leading boxers. “He came from terrible poverty — a huge extended family packed into a tiny township house, and Vuyani supporting the lot of them. So it really is a wonderful story of what the combination of dedication, constant training, clean living and talent can
On Saturday night this modest 27-year-old has the chance to add to all this belated acclaim when he takes on his number one contender, Mohammed Al Haji Nurhuda, at the Carousel.
The Indonesian visitor has a record showing 28 wins (seven knockouts), two losses and four draws, which compares reasonably with Bungu’s tally of 25 wins and two losses, but the level of Nurhuda’s opposition has been limited. The reason he holds the IBF number one spot has everything to do with politics and money, and very little with merit.
“I know very little about him and the videos we were sent were virtually useless because the quality was so bad,” said Bungu. “But I never take any opponent lightly and I’ve trained very, very hard for this one, so obviously I’m confident.”
The IBF champion is a tenacious boxer, extremely adept at reading the opposition quickly and adapting his attack accordingly. He is one of the finest body punchers in the game and has a workrate that few can match. He also possesses tremendous reserves of stamina, a firm chin and impressive natural strength — which all points to a relatively easy inside the distance victory.
He said his next step was to unify the 122lb (55.34 kg) title, but his promoter, Rodney Berman, was considerably more cautious on this score.
“We want to see the outcome of this fight before we talk seriously about unification. The problem is that in South Africa a fight with the WBC or WBA champion would simply be too expensive, which means that we’d have to entice HBO to televise it. If he wins well, that will become a priority because we really do believe that Bungu can do it.”
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