Deon Potgieter boxing For many years the title of “Mr Boxing” in South Africa belonged to the former CEO of the national boxing commission, Stanley Christodoulou. However, that title has now passed to Rodney Berman of Golden Gloves Promotions. Without a doubt, Berman is now the most powerful man in the sport in South Africa.
Last week Berman concluded a merger with two of Britain’s most influential boxing personalities, Barry Hearn of Matchroom Promotions and Riath Hamed (brother to Naseem).
The new consortium will be known as Golden Ring Limited and will be the third most powerful promotion group in the world – behind the flamboyant Don King’s group and Bob Arum. Although there has been some criticism from sectors of the boxing fraternity that Berman’s deal will be using local boxing talent and sponsors to the benefit of a British boxing operation, Berman insists otherwise.
“This merger will give South African boxing as a whole and the fighters opportunities which they could only dream of before,” says Berman. “We will be staging 10 tournaments a year under the Golden Ring banner – six in the United Kingdom and four in South Africa. All the bouts will be screened on Sky TV, so our fighters will be getting tremendous exposure.”
On the fact that there appears to be an imbalance of power in the local boxing scene and that he holds all the cards, Berman says: “I’m not going to apologise for being successful. We’ve paid our dues and we’ve empowered plenty of people over the years. Now those self-same people are crying foul and criticising us. They want the rewards without working for them.” Bert Blewett, editor of Boxing World magazine came out in support of the UK merger. “It could definitely strengthen our fighters’ international careers. I also just want to point out that it’s not a uniquely South African thing that one promoter holds most of the power. There are only a few promoters worldwide who stand out as major players. “Take the United States, for example, they have the most thriving boxing industry in the world, yet there are only two or three large promoters who have deals with the large television networks.” Dumile Mateza, interim CEO of the national boxing commission, says: “While this merger affords Golden Gloves the opportunity of promoting our fighters more vigorously outside the borders of our country, the fighters they would want to use would still first have to get permission from the commission in order to fight abroad.” Part of the concern about the merger is motivated by a remark by Berman that if the commission were allowed to redraft the broadcasting section of the new Boxing Act, allowing it the right to reassign broadcasting rights, he would take his boxers and leave the country. This merger was seen as Berman moving towards that precise goal. The reality is that he has been working on this deal for the past two years. Boxing more so than most other sports these days is a business and it makes good business sense to explore international options in whatever field a person wishes to move forward in. Of course, because it is a sport, the business has to be run according to certain regulations.
This merger should not be looked at by other promoters as a death knell for their operations, but as an incentive to do their business better. Golden Ring may be one of the biggest promotional groups in the world now, but most of those involved in the merger have been in the game for more than 20 years and have moved steadily upwards. The old saying goes “the biggest tree catches the most wind” – Golden Ring is sure to catch a lot of it.