They+ve come through two by two – South African heavyweights trying to win the world title
Gavin Evans When Lennox Lewis entered the ring to the sounds of Bob Marley+s We+re Gonna Chase Those Crazy Baldheads Out of Town, you couldn+t miss the message: no place for White Hopes in this hood. Francois Botha+s demise a few minutes later will not end the notion that a pale skin is an asset to heavyweight marketability, but it may mark closure for the South African project of this description. For a quarter of a century the country has disgorged big white hopefuls, two by two, and forever falling over their own moustaches. The early bidding featured a solid rugby prop, Jimmy Richards, and a less solid meat packer, Mike Schutte. In their fourth fight, the 1,8m, 120kg Schutte dominated and from then on Maurice and Alan Toweel did a fine job selling him, with his self-deprecating jokes and guitar playing. One top boxing writer told me of a murder threat from Maurice Toweel after he uncovered evidence that one of Schutte+s fights was fixed. Schutte was due to fight Muhammad Ali in 1976 but instead fell foul of the next pair of locals. The first Gerrie Coetzee-Mike Schutte fight was South Africa+s dirtiest yet, with fists serving as minor accessories to knees, heads, elbows and thumbs. Schutte was disqualified in the sixth round and a year later a Kallie Knoetze right curtailed his career, after which Schutte retired to the professional wrestling circuit. Knoetze, a riot cop who attained notoriety by crippling a child during the Soweto uprising, secured a few decent wins and despite foreign protests the apartheid- friendly World Boxing Association (WBA) did the rest. Unfortunately for his backers, the -Boomstraat Bek+ (Boom Street Mouth) lacked the chin and dedication to make it further and he took a severe beating from the American John Tate in a WBA final eliminator. He later achieved brief fame as a B-movie star, National Party cheerleader, and last year for joining the African National Congress. Coetzee, a Boksburg dental technician who spoke in a high-pitched monotone, was more complicated. Trained by Willie Lock – a man who sneered about -kaffirs+ – he was the first white boxer to take a stand against apartheid and the first to sing the praises of the former boxer and future president he called -Madina+. But he could range from gentility to brutality without notice. For instance, a former business client secured a restraining order against Coetzee, who was found to have threatened to send his -boys+ to rape his wife if the man didn+t pay up. A few years later Coetzee was accused of assaulting and threatening two of the black boxers he managed. Poor conditioning cost him his first two WBA title fights against Tate and Mike Weaver, after which he relocated to America, signed with Don King, beat the cocaine-addicted Michael Dokes for the crown in his third try, but lost his title in his first defence against Greg Page.
This Sun City comedy of errors began when Lock ignored the bell to start the second round, allowing Page to unload on a still- seated Coetzee and ended when time-keeper Blackie Swart forgot to ring the bell, which meant he was knocked out 50 seconds after the round should have ended. Coetzee, who twice tried to bribe me to write stories on his exploits, boasted of -throwing+ his final major league fight with Frank Bruno. In 1997 he was knocked out by the former middleweight champion Iran Barclay in his third and final comeback attempt, after which he returned from his US base to South Africa and hit the news again – for shooting a man in the knee (in self-defence, he said).
The next two hopefuls were less enduring -one too small; the other too big. Jimmy Abbott possessed immense power and an even more astonishing appetite. He bowled over Knoetze, but ate his way past the 140kg mark and was outboxed by a nuggety Natalian, Robbie Williams, who, in turn, proved to be was too slight for the best of the big. Abbott emerged between meals as a debt collector, then as an Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging heavy, and finally as a born-again evangelist, while Williams gassed himself and his children to death. The penultimate pair seemed promising. Though not the brightest pugilistic penny, police gym instructor Pierre Coetzer was seldom racist (beyond quips about -coolies+, that is) and seldom badly behaved (beyond allegedly using a blunt instrument on a man who damaged his Porsche). He came into contention by getting off the floor to flatten Kallie+s brother, security policeman Bennie Knoetze, and proved to be wonderfully dedicated and tenacious, but bled like a Russian prince and was devoid of finesse. He made it to the top of the International Boxing Federation (IBF) pile thanks to Cedric Kushner+s now-acknowledged bribes to IBF boss Bobby Lee, but defeats against Riddick Bowe, Frank Bruno and George Foreman forced him into retirement, after which he re-emerged as a bodyguard for then- president Nelson Mandela. The mullet-topped Du Plooy, another Lock trainee, had vast reserves of innate ability, power and charisma, but was pure gattis when it came to attitude. Between spliffs he smoked two packs a day, regularly left the arena clutching two bottles of bubbly and was in constant trouble with the law. And his attitudes to black people made Coetzer look wet. Still, under Rodney Berman+s inspired promotion, his gutless losses were easily forgotten and he was eventually rewarded for nothing with a shot at the low-rent World Boxing Organisation (WBO) title, but was knocked out by Italy+s Francesco Damiani, and then by Coetzer and finally by one of the two new boys on the white hope block, Corrie Sanders.
Sanders, yet another former cop, was refreshingly free from prejudice. In the late-apartheid days I invited him to Soweto to visit a Jake Matlala, and he was delighted to hang out with Baby Jake and his family. But he was too boring to attract much attention, and despite his speed and skill he was lazy and had minimal punch resistance. He held the no-rent World Boxing Union (WBU) -world+ title for three years, but this golf-mad, big-game-hunting obsessed southpaw will be remembered more for his two defeats than his 36 victories. And so we return to the more fortunate Botha, Sanders+s former four-time amateur victim. After benefiting from a couple of racist decisions in South Africa, this former fireman relocated to America and signed with King, who duly bribed Botha+s way into contention with the IBF. His brief reign as champion was obliterated when it emerged his dubious title victory was aided by anabolic steroids. Knockout losses to Michael Moorer and Mike Tyson and a draw with Shannon Briggs, earned him his shot with Lewis, who put him out of his misery in two rounds. But before that inevitable conclusion, Botha – who had been trained, managed and promoted by black men, told me: -I hope I can persuade more white heavyweights into coming out. I would like to have more friends out there – more white heavyweights – and I hope I can be a role model for the white heavyweights out there.+ Not bloody likely.