Gavin Evans Boxing
When you combine the words Namibia and sport, the only connection that springs to mind is Frankie Fredericks. There is, however, another young man – a close friend of the track star as it happens – who believes he’s on track to equal the achievements of his brilliant homeboy: Harry Simon.
This 26-year-old, who lives near Johannesburg and boxes mainly out of Britain, took his first major step towards this goal at the Carousel Casino in Hamanskraal on August 22, when he out-pointed the United States’s Ronald “Winkie” Wright for the World Boxing Organisation (WBO) light middleweight title.
Growing up in the coastal town of Walvis Bay, Harry was the youngest of three sons and four daughters of a “coloured” father and an Ovambo mother; and knew hunger, violence, abandonment and the extremes of statutory racism, from the moment he entered the world on October 21 1972.
When he speaks about his childhood he lowers his voice and his hardman veneer evaporates into an air of melancholy. “My mum died some years ago and I have still never seen my dad. Some people say he’s dead, but I know he’s alive. He left me when I was three months old and maybe he’s a bit ashamed to come and see me now, but that’s life, and if he comes back I will shake his hand, man to man.
“But it was very tough for me to grow up with just my mum. My sisters loved me and took care of me, but I really grew up on the streets and had to help myself. I didn’t have much chance to go to school and I had to go out and look for jobs.”
Within this harsh environment, he gravitated to a boxing club near his home in 1980 and showed the power, speed and hand-eye co-ordination that caught the attention of his trainers. After a month they felt he was ready for experienced opposition. “I had my first fight against a boy who later won an African title, but I won easily.”
He went on to become one of the outstanding African amateurs of his generation, boxing for Namibia and South Africa and winning a clutch of international titles. Together with Fredericks, he was viewed as a sure medal prospect for the Barcelona Olympics, having lost only once in 272 fights.
But it was not to be. Fredericks, of course, won a pair of silver medals for the 100m and 200m dashes, but Simon lost to an outrageous decision in the opening round and returned home heart-broken. “I wanted to win a medal for my country so much. I didn’t care what kind, I just wanted a medal. I fought a Puerto Rican in the first round and I beat him easily. Everybody knew I won, even the judges, but the computer said I’d lost. Even my opponent said to me afterwards: `Hey, I was lucky, I thought you won.’ So I was very disappointed. That kind of thing just breaks someone up – to be treated like that – because that wasn’t a loss.”
One of those who consoled him was Fredericks, with whom he had developed a close friendship 18 months earlier. “Frankie is one of my best buddies now. We’re like a team together – we enjoy each other’s company and we sometimes used to share hotel rooms. He’s like my older brother. He loves me and I love him, and his mom loves me too and treats me like a son, because she knows I don’t have a mum or a dad.”
At the time of his Olympic defeat he was working at a diamond mine, but after a 15 months he packed it in and turned professional. This meant rerouting to South Africa because there was no professional boxing board in Namibia. “I just asked myself one day: `Harry, can you become like Sugar Ray Leonard one day?’ I thought, `yes, everyone must take a chance in life, so I must take this chance and go for it, and if I win, then I’m in luck’.”
He joined Norman Hlabane’s Soweto gym, making his professional debut in January 1994 with a first round stoppage, followed by two more quick wins, before falling out with his promoter, Rhoan Gardiner. “I wasn’t sorry to see the back of him,” Gardiner once told me. “Harry was rude, undisciplined and arrogant and wouldn’t listen to advice and he’d take time off from training when he felt like it.”
Simon, however, remembers things differently. “I had no friends in South Africa and I didn’t have a place to stay, so I was living and training at the gym. For my first fight he paid me only R200, and I didn’t have enough food. The 1994 election was taking place and it was like a war there – lots of shooting and no boxing, so I asked him if he could give me R300 to go home for a week on the bus, but he wouldn’t. I was hungry and I can’t train when I’m hungry, and that’s why he said I had a bad attitude.”
He then linked up with his former Namibian Olympic team-mate, Nestor Tobias, but went eight months without a fight before a new promoter, Jeff Ellis, took over. With only seven fights under his belt he was put in with the US Northwest Boxing Association champion Danny Chavez, a 30-fight veteran who had lost only once in his previous 19 outings. After a tough 10 rounds, Simon emerged a clear winner. “Your guy is a real good boxer,” said Chavez. “He has the talent to go a long way.”
Simon followed this with a sixth-round knockout over the Argentinean Jose Cabral, after which he joined the growing stable of South Africa’s former world junior lightweight champion, Brian Mitchell, who, together with Johannesburg promoter, Rodney Berman, negotiated a contract with Britain’s Frank Warren.
With the exception of the Wright fight, Simon has since boxed exclusively in Britain and Ireland, beating several top British contenders along the way. Last year Simon’s brother, uncle and two close friends were killed in a motor accident, which prompted the cancellation of a fight.
“It was very painful for me, but these things happen. It’s part of life and you just have to accept it because it happens to everybody. You pray and go forward and do the best thing possible.” Since then he has fathered a pair of twins, prompting further delays.
But despite going eight months without a fight he showed marked improvement against Wright, slipping punches more adeptly, using his jab more forcefully and throwing more varied combination sequences. He was facing a man having his 40th fight, with only one points defeat four years earlier, but showed sophisticated technique to go with his incessant aggression and phenomenal stamina.
Wright, an awkward, accurate southpaw with one of the best jabs in the business, an impressive body attack and an extremely tight defence, found himself up against an opponent who managed to nullify these advantages.
Fighting in front of a crowd which included most of the Namibian Cabinet, Simon gave in inspired performance which made the 5:1 odds against him look silly. He avoided or absorbed the jabs and left crosses and consistently outworked the champion while weakening him with heavy hooks to his ribs.
In the ninth round Simon shook the champion with several unanswered blows but Wright has a firm chin and fought his way back to take the last couple of rounds. To the astonishment of the crowd, the result was initially announced as a draw, before the scorecard of the American judge, Julie Lederman, was rechecked and Simon emerged as a majority decision victor, by margins of 117-113, 115-114 and 114- 114.
It was a close fight, but Simon’s workrate sealed it. My own card showed him up by 116-114, though several viewers, including British champion and former Wright victim, Ensley Bingham, felt Simon was a wider winner. “In the end the judges came out with the truth – I won and justice was served,” said Simon afterwards. “I worked so very, very hard and I thank God I made it. I’m the first Namibian to be world champion ever, and that feels good”.
He played particular tribute to the role played by his trainer. “Brian’s the best trainer I’ve had. He was a boxer himself, so he knows how tough it is. He knows the moves and teaches them, and tells me how to train, what to eat, and what it takes to be champion.”
While previous trainers have had trouble coming to terms with Simon’s prickly persona, Mitchell has a warm relationship with his protg: “I’ve learnt to read him very well as a person. He comes across as very arrogant, like I do, but he’s got a good sense of humour and he’s a nice guy when you get to know him. His arrogance works for him and it suits me as a trainer because I need him to be cocky and confident when he gets in there. He puts it into the fights, and it helps make him special.”
However, Mitchell has to pay close attention to every aspect of Harry’s work, from his early morning run to his bedtime. “He’s usually dedicated but sometimes he gets a bit lazy. If you let him do his own thing, he’ll take chances and gaps, but once he gets in the gym, especially if he knows he has a fight coming up, he works very hard, and he never worked harder than for Wright.”
At a lean-wasted, broad-shouldered 1,78m, Simon has the natural power to hurt anyone he hits cleanly, and the speed and accuracy of his combinations make his punches difficult to avoid. His body punching is particularly effective and he has also shown a reliable chin as well as an attractive, crowd-pleasing style. Describing his own approach, he says: “I like to watch my opponent’s face. I let him touch me with his first jab and then I slip the second one, and move in quickly with my own jab and then hit his stomach.
“If I see his body isn’t hard I will land a right cross just there. Sometimes I play around a bit, but not with every fighter – it depends how tough he is. I can’t think of any weaknesses.”
His record now stands at 17:0 (14) but he feels there is no one his size in the world who can beat him and says he would be happy to take on World Boxing Counsel champion Keith Mullings, the World Boxing Association’s Laurent Boudouani and the International Boxing Federation’s Yory Boy Campas immediately, and also talks of a future “showdown” with world welterweight champion Oscar de la Hoya.
His eventual aim is to win several more world titles and then retire to the kind of family life that eluded him during his own childhood.
“When I stop boxing I want to become a trainer or a businessman, and I want to help these street kids too. I want to do something for the youngsters who grew up like I did – give them another direction and show them how to help themselves.”
ENDS