Maboko bemoans lack of boxing champions from Limpopo

Emerging trainer Hloni Maboko – a former professional boxer from Malamulele in Limpopo – is grossly worried about his province's boxing state of affairs.

Limpopo produced Olympians Cassius Baloyi, Phillip Ndou and Jeffrey Mathebula.

Baloyi qualified for the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona but was left out of the SA team and was instead told by the authorities to wait for the 1996 Atlanta Olympics and promised R1,000 every month if he stayed in the amateurs.

Baloyi turned professional and won his first world title, the WB junior-featherweight belt, in 1996. He went on to add the WBU featherweight belt, and the IBO and IBF junior-lightweight belts, twice each.

Ndou was in the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta. He turned professional in 1997 and won the WBU junior-lightweight belt. Mathebula was the last fighter from Limpopo to qualify for the Olympics and he participated in the Sydney 2000 Games.

Isaac Hlatshwayo won the IBO belts in the lightweight and welterweight where he also captured the IBF title. These former champions and many national title holders – including the late Joseph Makaringe, who defended his welterweight belt 19 times – came from the tutelage of Baloyi's father Eric Baloyi.

Today, Limpopo does not have a single South African champion, and chances of producing talent are scarce because Maboko says the only gym there is in Malamulele.

“That is far for kids from the village,” says Maboko, whose gym is based in Greenside, Johannesburg.

“Jabulani Makhense has the potential but should move up to the junior-middleweight division because I doubt, he can dethrone current SA welterweight champ Thulani Mbenge.”

Mbenge, from Mdantsane, stopped Makhense in three rounds in 2021 for the minimal WBA Pan African title.

The two trainers are now pinning their hopes on Khensahosi Makondo – who will face Brandon Thysse for the vacant SA junior-middleweight belt in Golden Gloves tournament at Emperors Palace on August 23.

Thysse is trained by Damien Durandt, whose camp is home to IBO flyweight holder Jackson Chauke, who was the last South African to be in the Olympics which took place in Beijing in 2008.

“Khensahosi's win will motivate young kids back home to consider taking up boxing as a career, so we start building up again because Nyiko and I have a plan,” said Maboko.