In the ring he stands out like his dyed blond hair; cocky, yet mature beyond his years, with punches like heavy artillery.
Azinga Fuzile is a grade 11 pupil from Duncan Village, a rough shanty town known as the cradle of boxing, near East London in South Africa’s Eastern Cape province. In his corner is his canny trainer, Mzamo ‘Chief’ Njekanye.
“I wouldn’t have done it without Chief, I am very thankful to him. He is able to guide me in everything that is happening,” says Fuzile. His experience contrasts his age; he christened the boxing gloves in 2006 as a 10-year-old and fought 300 times as an amateur.
“I participated in trials and would fight three fights in one day, that’s why I had so many fights,” he says.
“I lost some fights but they were very few.”
In 2014, he captained his country at the Junior Olympics in Scotland, at the age of 17. The same year, he knocked out an opponent in the third round of the final to win gold at the African Youth Championships, in Gaborone, Botswana – the first South African to do so.
His short life is full of milestones; he won his first major professional title in September 2016 beating veteran brawler Macbute Sinyabi with a unanimous decision to be crowned the South African featherweight champion in merely his fifth professional fight. In doing so, he drew comparison with legendary South African Vic Toweel – also an early starter – who went on to become the South African bantamweight champion in his fourth fight and boxed on to a world title championship, at the age of 22, in 1950.
“People who need to speak about the South African championship are people behind us, me and my boy are looking at the international route,” said Njekanye after the surprise win against Sinyabi.
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“I see myself as a world champion, that is what I am looking at; I do have the ability to achieve it,” said Fuzile.
Njekanye believes the nickname ‘Golden Boy’ is more of a prophecy.
“I saw that this is something, I saw his direction, was I lying when I said this boy is a golden boy? The whole country can see that Chief was right, a lot of people just knew about him, I have been building him for years,” says Njekanye.
His ambition of winning a world title came sooner than expected.
Fight fans scratched their heads when it was announced that little known Georgian, Giorgi Gochisvili, was to face Fuzile for the WBC youth featherweight title in Mdantsane, in the Eastern Cape.
“We were preparing for someone we didn’t know, we even failed looking for information on him because we got the wrong name. The day before the fight we got the correct information and watched his videos on YouTube,” says Njekanye.
Fuzile won his first world title, three months after his triumph against Sinyabi, beating Gochisvili to a pulp in the first round. Doctors rushed Gochisvili to hospital to repair the damage of a left to the liver.
“I didn’t care who I was fighting, it did not matter. All I knew is that I was going to beat this guy, I didn’t even know his style,” says Fuzile.
A lot of the preparation for the fight was spent in class. Fuzile is studying grade 11 at Kusile Comprehensive High School in Duncan Village.
“We were working under difficult conditions; we had a challenge of the gym and examination papers in between the dates, we had to understand each other. For me, your education and career are parallel, you can’t undermine the boy’s career,” says Njekanye.
“I was able to manage, when you don’t have any things distracting you in life then it is easy to manage everything,” says Fuzile.
With the exploits of the Golden Boy comes the pain of loss for trainer Njekanye. In 2016, Njekanye’s product Xolisani ‘Nomeva’ Ndongeni, a successful South African world champion boxer, left his gym to join Colin Nathan in Johannesburg, under prominent Rodney Berman’s Golden Gloves Promotions. A troubled Njekanye sees this as poaching.
“These boys are being fooled by these guys from Johannesburg. It is all because of greed, most of the boxers have gone to Gauteng and most of them have returned with bare hands,” he says.
“You can make a life out of boxing, they always believe by going to people like Colin Nathan he will give them money, they don’t know those people see a business when they see them. Even my boy Azinga, they want him, that’s what you can say about these boxers, they have gone and come back with nothing.”
“You need to remember people like Nomeva Ndongeni came from my hands; I took him from the streets, before Fuzile everyone was talking about Nomeva,” says Njekanye.
The trainer takes responsibility for all his precious prodigies.
“These boys come from an unfortunate background. Without me, Duncan wouldn’t be producing these boys, tell me who else is doing what I am doing to these lads. This is the second world champion to come out of these hands. I have done this thing voluntarily; there was never any contribution,” he says.
The Golden Boy’s impressive career is set to continue in February. Njekanye confirms that a fight, that could be international, is on the cards.
As for Fuzile, he is training and waiting for his examination results so he can qualify for his final year at school. He hopes to pass with flying colors in both ring and classroom this year.

The Schoolboy  Who Teaches Boxers  A Lesson

It was a nightmare for the African Rocky amid the howls of the hecklers, against a younger and bigger fighter. The once washed-up Zolani Marali had the odds stacked against him in a bloody night in East London, South Africa. Marali was on the ropes so often that they cut his back open. Everyone could see the blood because he was on the run, to the anger of the crowd.
“Get off the bicycle and fight. We paid to watch good boxing, not your running around,” shouted a man in the crowd.
Kaizer Mabuza, known as The Animal, bullied Marali for 12 rounds but he held on to his WBF mini-flyweight title. It was a night of the underdog – Nelson Mandela would have been proud.
This boxing night on July 18, Mandela’s birthday, was dedicated to the man, himself a former pugilist. The boxers wanted to win for Mandela, all night they spat blood and bit the canvas. East London is South Africa’s boxing-mad city; children here learn to punch before they learn to talk. It’s about 230 kilometers from where Mandela was born in Mthatha.
“Although I had boxed a bit at Fort Hare, it was not until I had lived in Johannesburg that I took up the sport in earnest. I was never an outstanding boxer. I was in the heavyweight division, and I had neither power to compensate for my lack of speed nor enough speed to make up for my lack of power,” wrote Nelson Mandela in Long Walk To Freedom.
“Nobody celebrates Madiba as a boxer; the intention is to elevate that aspect of his life. People need to understand that there’s no Berlin Wall between politics and sport,” says Ayanda Matiti of Xaba Boxing Promotions that organized the event.
Surely, Marali would have welcomed the Berlin Wall between himself and Mabuza.
Marali clinched and ran from Mabuza, wearing him down. Mabuza soldiered on. Marali weaved and frustrated his opponent, who missed the head time and time again.
Boxing can be a cruel sport and Marali knows how. The 38-year-old, an All Africa Games bronze medallist, was on the verge of quitting five years ago. His fortunes changed under the eye of a new trainer Alan Toweel. Marali’s man in the corner comes from a boxing family, his father, Alan senior, was an outstanding trainer. His uncle, Vic Toweel, was South Africa’s only undisputed world champion &#8211; taking the bantamweight title from Manuel Ortiz on May 31, 1950 in Johannesburg.
“When Zolani was knocked out by a Korean in 2009, many boxing purists wrote him off; they told him to retire because he was finished. But I knew there’s something left in him,” says Toweel.
Marali made his comeback when he beat Ali Funeka to claim the world title in East London in 2012. On this night, he defended his title for the second time, winning a split decision against Mabuza &#8211; even though he got a bleeding back in the process.
Though fans jeered Marali for avoiding a toe-to-toe fight, Toweel says it was all part of the plan.
“Boxing is not all about fight, it’s about defense also. You run, you clinch and turn a man around. It’s a cat and mouse fight… Kaizer fought top overseas fighters like Zab Judah. There’s no way I was going to let Zolani trade punches with him. From the first round, Kaizer was upset, he was confused and he continuously missed punches. That set the pace of the fight. He landed better punches and didn’t take punishment,” says Toweel.
“At his age, I will continue working on his defense. We will take one fight at a time, he still has some two to three years in his feet.”
Marali’s fight was followed by a much-anticipated bout between Nick Durandt’s former stablemates, Lusanda Komanisi and Macbute Sinyabi. Komanisi showed no respect for his former senior. From the first bell they went at it hammer and tongs.
The younger, quicker Komanisi taunted Sinyabi in the ring. In the fifth round, Komanisi finished it. He caught Sinyabi with a sweeping left hook knocking him to the ropes. The fight could have ended there, but the referee let it go on. Sinyabi took time to get back on his feet. Komanisi battered Sinyabi who tried desperately to clinch. A volley of punches and a big right to the temple polished Sinyabi off.
This brought out the ugly side of boxing. Sinyabi struggled to breathe until paramedics gave him oxygen and walked him to the changing room. Komanisi’s IBO featherweight title brought Durandt’s world championship tally to 38 in 29 years as a manager and trainer.
“I expected the knockout, though I didn’t know which round. Before the beginning of the fifth round I told Lusanda ‘this is your moment,’” says Durandt.
As Marali licked his wounds, he looked forward to wealthier times. Next time he steps into the ring for a defense he can expect to earn up to $40,000 for a night’s work.
Marali is putting the money into his boxing gym in East London for his retirement in the days when he will no longer have to run the ring with blood on his back.

Hey Rocky! Get Off The  Bicycle And Fight!

The lights are out at the 1Time offices in Isando in Johannesburg’s East Rand. There’s no receptionist on duty and you can park in anyone’s parking spot.
It’s business unusual for the budget airline that went into provisional liquidation in November, leaving the airline with its wings clipped. But group CEO of 1Time Holdings Blacky Komani is trying not to flap and to keep his eyes on the horizon.
“It’s true I’m not sleeping at night, I keep thinking about what else I can do,” he says.
He’s sitting in the very boardroom seat where he made the decision to suspend all services that first Friday of November. He knows it was a Friday because the start of the weekend would be a critical factor in the perfect storm he says led to the airline being grounded.
“Once you’re in business rescue, which we were from August, you have to pay everything in cash and if it’s a weekend you have to pay for the whole weekend in advance. If you don’t have a proof of payment by 3PM on Friday for fuel and other expenses you’ll be grounded,” says Komani.
He says up until just 2PM that afternoon they were confident they’d make the deadline. Negotiations were looking good with UK-owned budget airline group Fastjet and creditors seemed likely to consent to a lifeline. But the storm got ugly, creditors baulked and Fastjet was sent scurrying.
At 2.23PM (he remembers the time exactly) he made the call for suspension of services, leaving hundreds of passengers stranded and his staff in tears and total shock.
“I didn’t believe it myself. I remember calling my wife, Pam, a little after we made the announcement. I phoned her but I couldn’t say the words ‘We’ve gone into liquidation’,” he says.
The 49-year-old from Kwelera, East London, had put up his Bryanston house as collateral when he, as one of six Mtha Aviation shareholders, went to the Industrial Development Bank (IDC) for a R49 million ($5.49 million) loan to buy a 25% share in 1Time. The deal went through in March 2011.
Komani, who lived in the States for 10 years, was in New York when the Twin Towers fell in the 9/11 tragedy. He says watching 1Time implode was like watching those towers crumble over 11 years ago. It was an emotional ground zero for him too. He shed tears publicly at the time and admits to being too overwrought to make media statements. He says he felt he let down his staff and members of public, who had come to trust the no-frills carrier.
“You feel so alone, like you’ve tried everything and it’s still not enough,” he says.
The abrupt halt to business could not have come at a worse time, just weeks before Christmas. This weighs heavy on Komani’s mind, and so too does the suicide of a pilot who was on 1Time’s payroll, just weeks after the airline was grounded.
It wasn’t supposed to turn out like this. For Komani entering into the airline industry meant merging his love for business and his passion for tourism. Giving travelers greater access to air travel across the continent had to be the next leap forward for tourism and business, he figured back in 2010.
But four factors created turbulence 1Time didn’t need.
“The World Cup didn’t deliver what we expected in terms of business opportunities. We acquired the maintenance facility Jetworx that came with its own problems. New player in the market Velvet Sky was taking a cut of passengers from us and when we’re talking about the low-cost arena, those last 10 passengers are what you need to stay in business. The final factor was that the oil price never dipped below $110 a barrel. Anything above that means you’re in a very tight position,” he says.
Critics—including trade union Solidarity, who had access to 1Time’s records during its period in business rescue—say 1Time was doomed with bad management practices. These included a glut of staff, especially at Jetworx, even when the airline was down to a fleet of seven aircraft; not clocking up enough flying hours a month; fat management incentive payouts when 1Time was floundering; and deficiencies in credit and cash flow management.
Komani doesn’t believe he fiddled while Rome burnt. He says they knew they were in trouble in May 2011. He says they started cutting costs and dropped three planes from their fleet of 10. Trimming the fat meant flattening their management structures, plugging leaks and stopping wastage and theft. They optimized flight schedules and Komani says he took a 10% salary cut and didn’t take bonuses.
“Ironically by October last year, just one month before we suspended flights, our records showed that the company had actually saved R30 million ($3.4 million) that year compared to the same figures from the previous year,” he says.
But it was too late. Even though they managed to sell Jetworx, saving around 250 jobs by February this year, liquidators were looking to divvy up the pie to creditors. Komani and his team’s big hope lies in UK-based Fastjet sealing the deal. Fastjet is the African version of Stelios Haji-Ioannou’s EasyJet venture in the UK. They will buy the company for R1 ($0.10) and inherit the R462 million ($52 million) debt. Fastjet’s designs are to broaden its pan-African flight route.
It’s a tricky deal. Fastjet, headquartered in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, has been in dispute over unpaid leasing and maintenance bills to a Canadian aircraft leasing company. It’s also tangled up in an outstanding tax claim of around $2.4 million in the East African country.
Back in South Africa, the deal is still subject to the thumbs up by South African transport minister Ben Martins. 1Time will be hoping for a precedent-setting exemption to allow for more than 25% foreign ownership in a local airline to meet Fastjet’s majority shareholding aims. But other domestic airlines have objected to the application, saying it will erode the position of local aviation shareholders. A nod from the minister will give Fastjet international route rights without the company having to follow standard route license application processes, they say.
Komani sees it differently.
“I think the minister understands it’s an important decision around keeping the low-cost air travel model alive in South Africa, and also that there are over 540 jobs from the airline at stake,” he says.
Even if the deal comes through it could leave him out in the cold. He could be edged out as management structures are further pared down.
“I have a love of people and right now for me saving jobs is the most important box to tick. For me, I’ll come right one way or another.
“The lessons I learnt have been about implementing rescue measures early on and making sure they take effect as quickly as possible. Also that loyalty and leadership in tough times matters—anyone can be a good leader when things are going well,” he says.
Another worry on Komani’s mind is Skywise—brainchild of 1time founders Rodney James, Glenn Orsmond, Michael Kaminski, and Johan Bortslap, and more recently Wayne Duvenhage. The new budget airline is set to take to the skies in the second half of 2013, with three daily flights between Johannesburg and Cape Town and more destinations to follow. Skywise was granted an air service licence in March.
He may have lost his appetite for aviation right now but Komani’s trying to keep his focus and his sense of humor. So when asked the question: “Chicken of beef?” He says: “Right now, I think I’m on a diet”.

Tag: East London

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The Schoolboy Who Teaches Boxers A Lesson

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Clipped Wings