As predicted, the PBL fight-night III produced fireworks with 3 Western Cape Boxers earning much respect from the crowd and television viewers at large. Chris Hani Hospital was just a few minutes away but unfortunately no Boxer was sent there on a stretcher as all 6 Boxers refused to be knocked out. The acting Chairperson of Boxing Ntambi Ravele was also present and she appeared encouraging the Boxers and was hands-on in the ring during the pre and post-fight activities.
The first fight of the night saw the SA bantamweight champion Toto “Gupta plane” Helebe trying so hard to knockout Innocent “Tycoon” Matengu. But the youngster proved so much that it was not going to be easy for him to be knocked out even though the fight was an easy cruise for Helebe.
On the fight we witnessed the hard heating Gugulethu based Toto Helebe using both his power and ring presence to demolish the young “Tycoon” from KwaZulu-Natal. Toto Helebe won on points and he is now joint second on the PBL log with Xolisani Ndongeniwho also has 1 fight. They both have 15 points, 11 points behind the log leader Vusumuzi Tyatyeka. Toto won by the biggest margin of 15 – 3, setting the record for the highest margin so far in the tournament.
The second fight was between the veteran former champion Mashudu “Oscar” Chauke and another prospect Lwando “Floyd” Molwana. Lwandomolwana proved a lot of grit when he absorbed and had an answer for all the punishment that was dished by Oscar Chauke. The 10 year difference between the two boxers was not clear like in the first bout as Oscar even showed frustration when he knocked out Molwana while he was already down, leading to two points deduction from his points by the judge.
Molwana suffered 2 knockdowns both in rounds 3 and 5 but came back hard every time he fell. As promised, Oscar Chauke displayed a cautious but busy Olympic boxing style which earned him the recognition of the judges. Chauke won a 10 – 2, decision which was not really reflective of the fight that took place. He also won the Boxer of the tournament award of R 5000.00.
The third fight was to decide who is out of the million rand prize money when Grant Fourie and Vusumuzi Tyatyeka faced off. Both Boxers had lost their first fights as they both fought Bokolo and Ndongeni. To the surprise of the crowd, Tyatyeka won and is now at the top of the log with 26 points. Their fight provided fireworks as both boxers showed their hearts of lions. The final score was 11 – 7 all judges in favour of Tyatyeka. On Twitter grant Fourie showed disdain when he twitted “Wow!!!!! What more must one do!!!!!!” He was clearly not satisfied about the decision. The top 5 log standings are as follows;
- Vusumzi Tyatyeka 26 points
- Toto Helebe 15 points
- Xolisani Ndongeni 15 points
- Mzuvukile Magwaca 13 point
- McBute Sinyabi 12 points
The next PBL will be on October on a date and venue yet to be announced but many are anticipating the venue to be Cape Town, and we are still yet to see a knockout in the premier boxing league.
