Boxing action at Emperors Palace

African Ring, in association with Golden Gloves and Emperors Palace, proudly presented the Thunder Struck Box and Dine event on March 25, in the Emperors Palace Centre Court.

With a three-course meal and seven bouts to enjoy, the fans had quite a treat.

The first bout was a lightweight contest between Shone van Schalkwyk and Mandla Sibusiso.

Both fighters seemed nervous and analysed each other’s punches throughout the first round.

In the second round, they were powered up, with Sibusiso going in with full force and landing straight, firm punches. The punches were accurate, which came as indication that he had already analysed his opponent.

As van Schalkwyk starting feeling the blows from Sibusiso he looked weary and punched back in retaliation, but without aim.

Weak knees were evident in van Schalkwyk in the last minutes of the second round, and it came as no surprise when he refused to come back for the third round, which resulted in the energetic Sibusiso winning the bout.

The shortest bout of the night was the bantamweight title fight contested by Ronald Malindi and Meshak Matabula.

These two fighters went straight into it, leaving no room for observation — they seemed to know what to do.

With a number of hook and up punches from Malindi, Matabula was overwhelmed and it showed as he started to bleed and offered no defence against the blows.

This resulted in a technical knockout (TKO) two minutes and 39 seconds into the first round, and a win for Malindi.

The middleweight title bout, scheduled between Josh Roos and Phillip Dlamini, was cancelled, because Dlamini was unable to attend.

Josh Roos and Anton Gilmore got into the ring just to be acknowledged, and Zane Mundell and William Bankisi battled for the junior middleweight title.

It was a four-round bout and it went to the last round; this was a great fight, with both boxers showing good skill.

The winner was crowned according to a split decision of 36-40, 39-37 and 37-39 points, in favour of Bankisi.

Boksburg’s Stone van Aswegen fought Willis Baloyi in a six-round 64.5kg catchweight title bout.

This was one of the bouts that saw the audience completely neglecting their meal, because no one wanted to miss a single action in the adrenalin rush fight.

Baloyi and van Aswegen are skilled fighters and they had a fair and neat first round.

It was in the second round that Baloyi started to corner van Aswegen at every chance he got, but van Aswegen was able to escape and fight back with firm jabs.

The one mistake that van Aswegen did make was to allow Baloyi to corner him, because Baloyi took this as an opportunity to throw as many punches as he could.

Fans rooting for van Aswegen kept encouraging him to stay clear of corners.

The Boksburg fighter listened and he started to gain more dominance in the third and fourth rounds, as he also started to apply more skill and technique.

This delivered yet another spilt decision, of 59-57, 58-56 and 56-58 points, in favour of Boksburg’s van Aswegen.

The heavyweight bout was fought between Martin Makabu (DRC) and Cecil Smith, from Hillbrow.

This bout was a pro-debut fight for both boxers.

Smith went in full force in the first round, striking and jabbing and showing a lot of energy.

Makabu was calm and analysed his opponent throughout the first round, but the audience kept encouraging him to stand on his toes, jab and not stand still.

In the second round, Makabu showed why he remained calm in the first: he wanted to observe his opponent’s weaknesses and strength and, at the same time, tire him out.

This worked for him, because, at the beginning of the second round, he was striking hard and landing firm blows that weakened Smith.

Makabu finally hit Smith with one straight punch that drove him to his knees and drew blood.

That was Makabu’s winning punch, because Smith then seemed weaker and, in one minute and 19 seconds into the second round he was finished.

The seventh and last bout of the evening was a 75kg catchweight bout between Dowayne Combrink and Simon Mokoena.

This was another straightforward bout, because Combrink dominated the fight from the get go.

He double jabbed his opponent and left no room for attack, leaving Mokoena, who still seemed to be analysing, completely defenceless.

Mokoena was cornered throughout most of the first round and all he could do was to defend, which also seemed to be a struggle, as he had to recover from the blows.

Combrink won the bout one minute and 19 seconds into the second round.