Celebrity boxing is the way to go to revive the fortunes of the fisticuffs sport in the country. For too long the sport had a vicious uppercut that knocked it down into the lowest ebbs of sporting codes in SA. To this day, local boxing is still battling the shake off the effects of the KO punch some 15 years ago, when the sport used to be the second most popular to football.

This is the feeling from a number of boxing personalities Sowetan spoke to after watching the much-hyped clash between ace rapper Cassper Nyovest, real name Refiloe Phoolo, and actor/muso Anga “NaakMusiq” Makunga. The latter deservedly won the five-rounder on points against fan favourite Phoolo.

The exhibition fight attracted about 3,000 fans to the Sun City Superbowl, which used to be the home of super pro boxing matches back in the 80s and 90s.

While boxing stakeholders such as trainers Bernie Pailman and Colin Nathan, and CEO of J4 Joy Promotions Squire Nododile, who gave the unofficial match the thumbs up, their colleagues Thulani “3Seconds” Nkwanyana and Alan Toweel Junior beg to differ.

“I welcome and appreciate what [promoter] Joyce Kungwane has done and surely more and more sponsors will have an interest in this but how does it benefit boxing if the real boxing fraternity is left behind,” asked former boxer and now trainer Nkwanyana

“I mean, BSA should have been a role player and that way officials would have benefited and this fight would have been handled professionally. You can't allow musicians to do as they please with our sport because we cannot do the same in their industry.”

Toweel said: “It does not look good when two men swing and hit each other silly. The punishment they took could cause serious injuries. They were just slugging it out and the sweet science was missing because they are not boxers. Leave boxing to boxers."

But Pailman differed: “I give thumbs up to Joyce. These days it is just a handful of fans that still attend boxing. But I tell you now some of the boxers who fought at Sun City before in front of those thousands of ordinary citizens could now be easily be recognised walking in the streets.”

Nathan, whose fighter Simphiwe Konkco defeated Filipino Ariston Aton in a 10-rounder before Lwandile Ngxeke knocked out Athenkosi Dumezweni in the 10th round for the vacant SA junior-bantamweight belt in the same tournament on Saturday, said: “These celebrities did not choose a tennis court but they chose a boxing ring, creating a new audience and driving attraction and attention to boxing.”

BSA acting CEO Nsikayezwe Sithole, who was at Sun City, said: “It was a much-needed event to give spark to boxing since Covid-19 and we called it a weekend where BSA was fully demonstrating that we are an institute that embraces innovations and creativity. The benefits of this combination brought much exposure to our boxers and boxing as a sport. For the first time boxing was trending on all social media platforms.”