Friday night: Michelle Constant
Some people do a day at the races, others a night at the opera, mine was an evening at the boxing. Past Hammanskraal, down the freeway, the evening heat lifting off the tired tarmac and the Carousel lights twinkling. Maybe it’s the heat, the almost- desert light at sunset, but it does flash momentarily in my senses like Vegas. Las Vegas it is not, but then again I’m not Hunter S Thompson.
I am spending my evening at the boxing though, so close to the ring that I can tell cruiserweight Sebastian Rothman has a tiny boxer tattooed on his upper arm; so close that I can almost feel the swelling eye after a well-placed punch; so close that sweat sprays my way.
On TV the sound of boxing is like “Monica Seles grunting”, two rows from the ring it’s stomach-churningly difficult to watch, but I’m addicted. Ever since I read Donald McRae’s book Dark Trade, watched When We Were Kings and saw Baby Jake fight live, I’ve been a fan. Now I’m about to watch IBF Junior Featherweight champion Vuyani “The Beast” Bungu take on challenger Victor Llerena of Columbia.
Celebrities, politicians, evening dresses and tuxes abound. The “round girlies” seduce with sequinned smiles. Appearances are kept, and blood is let. A round of three minutes is endless (even more so when you’re in the ring and on the losing end, I’m sure) and yet the lead-up fights go quickly. As the foreign fighters wilt under an avalanche of South African punches a ringwise journalist comments that it may be a Sun International conspiracy to get us quickly to the slots.
Perhaps with all these Spaniards, they just got a package deal. The aforementioned Rothman knocks out Juan Pena of Spain in less than three minutes.
The latter’s cheek is bloodied and it’s humiliating to watch him fall. It’s a weird concept – voyeuristically sitting in on someone else’s pain. I’m all for the South African fighters winning but I’m also ambivalent towards the losers.
Watching Spaniard Fernando Riera being beaten by Giovanni “Shosholoza” Pretorius is frightful. Everyone sings and the latter swings – ferociously. One mock charge and I would have vaulted out the ring into the sweltering, heady evening. But we’re all waiting in anticipation for the Big Fight: The Beast against the Columbian. As the former’s praise poet sings before the fight: “The beast is ready for his supper.”
The tent is sweating and everyone is pumped. Bungu is a beautiful (if one could call a boxer that) fighter, carefully dancing his way around the ring, fists up around his face, taking a blow to give a blow. The two are evenly matched, although the Columbian appears to be flat footed and tiring. And he is.
By the eighth round it turns out that the 100% Columbian is obviously cut with baby powder, and he throws in the towel. I’m stunned (oh and damn disappointed, because I put my money on a win by points and not by technical knockout.) But not as stunned as Llerana looks as he slowly climbs out the ring, amid the cheers of Bungu’s supporters.
Michelle Constant ([email protected]) presents Hitweek on e-TV and is a freelance radio journalist.
ENDS
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