Deon Potgieter boxing
It’ll be his third attempt to become the first South African boxer to win four world titles and Baby Jake Matlala is sure it’ll be third time lucky. Matlala faces Australian flyweight champion Todd Makelin for the vacant World Boxing Union (WBU) junior flyweight title on February 17 at Carnival City.
The venue thus far has not been a good one for Matlala. His previous two bouts have been held there and both ended with controversial decisions. Matlala faced Hawk Makepula for the World Boxing Organisation junior-flyweight title in February last year in a classic encounter.
Makepula fared well against Matlala but did not win the fight. The judges on the night, John Stewart (United States), and locals Lulama Mtya and Rassie Erasmus, were clearly not watching the same bout as the 5 000 spectators and gave Makepula victory.
Ironically Makepula himself fell foul of a hotly disputed decision against International Boxing Federation flyweight world champion Irene Pacheco late last year.
Although there was a lot of talk about putting Makepula and Matlala up against each other in a rematch, it unfortunately never materialised. Matlala then took on Peter Culshaw for the latter’s WBU flyweight world title. Culshaw preferred to run away from the powerful-punching Matlala rather than duke it out with him.
The British fighter’s athletic skills impressed the judges so much that they forgot they were watching a boxing match and awarded Culshaw a victory on the basis of being the faster runner.
This victory clearly identified a weakness in the WBU’s 20-point- per-round scoring system and they wisely reverted to the universally accepted 10-point-per-round system soon after the bout.
“If Makelin intends running away from me, like Culshaw did, he’s in for a surprise,” says a highly motivated Matlala, having just competed in his first Duzi canoe marathon. “I’ve been working hard on cutting the corners off and have also been working on my speed.”