There was a lot of hype leading up to the fight between Jason “Badman” Bedeman and Bonani “Sweetie Pie” Dlamini in June, with the two pugilists almost coming to blows before the bout at a Box & Dine event at Emperors Palace. There was a lot of smack talk from Dlamini, determined to get his hands on Bedeman’s belt.
“Sweetie Pie” had a lot of words at the ensuing press conference, while the “Badman” spoke intensely, voice crackling and fury emanating from his pores.
What was not so overt was that beyond the smack talk, Dlamini was hiding his anxiety by talking a good game. And what lurked behind both fighters’ demeanour were racial undertones often dismissed and brushed aside in boxing circles.
The battle plan from Dlamini’s camp was simple: “Don’t get mixed up with the ferocious and gung-ho punching style of Bedeman.” He just had to dance around the ring, keeping Bedeman at arm’s length and simply out-boxing him. “Whatever you do, don’t mix with him.” (Meaning don’t fight him at close quarters)
Loyiso Mtya, Boxing South Africa acting chief executive, said in the week before the fight that Dlamini would win the fight on sheer boxing class, but Bedeman could nick it because of his “unbridled fury”.
On fight night Dlamini threw the play book out of the window and tangled with Bedeman, resulting in Bedeman sending him on several trips to the canvas before his camp threw in the towel.
Dlamini said after the fight that the stage was simply too big for him as he was used to tussling in smaller venues, in Mpumalanga and Bloemfontein.
“I fought the wrong fight. I was pressured and lost my strategy. When I got there, I lost control,” he said at the time.
But what Dlamini did not disclose in post-fight interviews was the pain of losing to a white boxer, which he felt stayed longer on his mind.
“Losing to a white boxer hurts more than any other loss. I think it is because of our past and maybe as black boxers we want to set things right in the ring. Losing that fight was not easy and the pain lasts longer,” Dlamini said.
‘Even today the Wembley Arena is still a racial crowd’
The racial acrimony in boxing is not the sole preserve of the gladiators in the ring but exists in the audiences as well.
When Mikey Schultz squared up against Zimbabwe’s Tineyi Maridzo last year, the Wembley Arena was filled to the brim mostly with white people supporting Schultz. The few black faces were in the little-known Maridzo’s corner.
When Maridzo knocked Schultz out in the first round, the black sect jumped for joy while the other supporters picked up their jaws from the floor. As celebrations for Maridzo’s victory ensued, some white members of the crowd told the jovial blacks to go back to Soweto.
Earlier this year at Emperors Palace an elderly lady, supporting Tommy “Tommy Gun” Oosthuizen when he took on Thomas Awinobo was not so subtle. She encouraged Oosthuizen to “moer the kaffir”.
Golden Gloves Promotions, the organisers of the event, moved swiftly to remove the woman and issued a statement lamenting such behaviour.
Back in 1979 Mtya was a junior middleÂweight before rising to the lofty heights of chief CEO. At Wembley Arena he stood toe to toe for the first time with a white fighter after the ban against mixed-race bouts was lifted. While he was there Mtya came into contact for the first time with a crowd that was entirely white with not a single black person in sight. Mtya says not much has changed in terms of the make-up of support at the venue.
“Even today the Wembley Arena is still a racial crowd, in the sense that the crowd comes to watch white fighters. Their preference in boxers is very racial and they support them with passion. The boxer does not have to be very good. In fact he can be average and he will become a superstar. For a black boxer to become a draw card he has to be very good.
“The history of black versus white is still the biggest draw card. They don’t even have to be especially good but because of the history of our country these are very big.”
Golden Gloves promoter Rodney Berman is well aware of this trend and its appeal to the boxing public.
“It’s not only a crowd thing,” says Berman. “If you put two boxers from different race groups in the same ring, they both rise to the occasion in a way they usually wouldn’t in a fight involving people from the same race. It also has huge box-office appeal. For some reason it matters a great deal to the audience.”
Mtya sheds more light on why racial tensions simmer in boxing more than in any other sport: “Boxing is about physical superiority. It is a physical, mental and spiritual fight. It is competition at its highest level. That is why you will find that it goes beyond the man in the ring as he is subconsciously representing the superiority of his people. In the end it is man versus man and each man is representing a certain category of people, a certain category of attitudes and emotions.”
While quotas in rugby and cricket dominate racial debates in sport, boxing is left out by the powers that be, even though racial discontent clearly rages on.