Chauke aims to emulate Matabola by winning championship belt

SA flyweight champion Jackson “M3” Chauke will take on a crucial title defence at East London's ICC on Sunday.’

The 12 rounds scheduled match-up against Thembelani Nxoshe is a must-win bout for the champion to claim the outright ownership of Boxing SA’s national championship belt.

Chauke is going for the fifth defence and that is the required number of successful defences for any SA boxing champion to own the belt.

Chauke comes from a very long, windy and thorny road as an amateur boxer.

That includes carrying the weight of all sport loving South Africans on his tiny shoulders at the Olympics in Beijing in 2008 where he was the sole boxing representative. SA has not had a representative in the global sporting showpiece since then.

He came back and turned professional and 11 years later, and at 34, Chauke won the national belt.

Now at 38 he is gunning for respect, honour and admiration by all South Africans, especially, his homies in Tembisa.

The first and last boxer from that township to own the SA boxing championship belt was  Andrew “Pretty Boy” Matabola.

The former SA featherweight champ is Chauke’s uncle-in-law. Chauke, former Gauteng, ABU, WBF Interim, WBC International and WBO Global champion is married to Matabola’s niece. 

Back in the day, national boxing champions had to defend belts successfully three times to own the Old Buck Belt, which was SA’s most prestigious belt.

There was also an Old Buck world championship belt presented to the winner of any world championship bout held in SA, even if neither contestant was a South African. The winner kept the belt for life.

In January 2006, Boxing SA, which came into being in 2001, introduced their own championship belt. That is how the Old Buck belt was phased out. 

Chauke will be up against a competent and equally capable foe in 34-year-old Nxoshe from Mdantsane. Nxoshe has previously won the same belt, which he could only defend successfully twice.

The fight at East London’s ICC will form part of Xaba Promotions event. Landile “Man Down” Ngxeke will welcome Denmark Quibido from the Philippines for the vacant WBO Global bantamweight title in the main event of a seven-fight card programme. Action will begin at 2pm.