Bongani Magasela

Bongani Magasela

Philip "Time Bomb" Ndou will regain his star status.

This assertion was made by promoter Rodney Berman, who together with trainer Nick Durandt, guided this knockout artist to the WBU super featherweight title.

Ndou, 32, whose crippling power a few years back turned him into a knockout artist, will make a come back on Saturday in an eight rounder against Rachid Drilzane in France.

It was organised by Berman who said exaggerated statements were part and parcel of the fight game.

"I'd be less than truthful if I said that promoters the world over didn't stretch their boxers' achievements.

"This is true when it comes to selling a fight. But certain fighters are unable to attain the heights created in the hype while others eclipse them.

"Ndou is going up three weight divisions but frankly I've no doubt that he will regain the form that once made him, by consensus, South Africa's best pound-for-pound fighter of the new millennium," said Berman of the Limpopo fighter who will be ushered to war by new trainer Michele Castellan.

Ndou retired in 2004 after a cyst was found in his brain. He had won the SA and WBA Inter-Continental featherweight, WBU and WBC International super featherweight belts.

But Ndou was stopped in seven rounds by Floyd Mayweather for the WBC lightweight strap.

Until then Ndou had recorded 30 knockouts and a single defeat, a stoppage by Anthony Campbell.

Ndou's career began with Branco Milen-kovic who took him to the SA and WBA Inter-Continental featherweight belts.