By Monwabisi Jimlongo
For someone who’s going to be involved in one of his biggest fights ever, Hekkie Budler’s trainer Colin ‘Nomakanjani’ Nathan expected Boxing South Africa (BSA) to at least wish his boxer good luck ahead of his fight against Japanese opponent Kenshiro ‘The Amazing Boy’ Teraji.
Sadly, that did not happen as Budler together with his trainer Colin ‘Nomakanjani’ Nathan, assistant trainer Shannon Strydom and cutman Bernie Pailman are already in Japan having arrived there last weekend.
Budler challenges World Boxing Council (WBC) and World Boxing Association (WBA) ‘Super’ junior-flyweight champion Teraji at the Ariake Arena in Tokyo on Monday next week.
Interestingly, only suspended BSA director of operations Mandla Ntlanganiso has wished Budler good luck.
“Nothing, except from the suspended ops director Mandla. Mandla wished us luck,” Nathan revealed.
Contacted for comment, acting BSA chief executive officer Erick Nsikayezwe Sithole said: “Usually, we don’t do that. We hardly wish our boxers well when they go fight overseas.
“Going forward we will do so as we have a process which we have started as we seek to recognise world bodies. We want to have terms and conditions on how we will work together going forward. When that process is done and MoUs have been signed then we will start wishing our boxers well before they go fight abroad.”
Meanwhile, the WBC and WBA titles are not the only ones that are going to be on the line during the fight as the Ring Magazine belt is also going to be at stake as well.
The 35-year-old Budler was successful the first and the last time he visited Japan more than three years ago. He defeated Japanese Ryoichi Taguchi to win the International Boxing Federation (IBF) and WBA ‘Super’ junior-flyweight titles as well as the Ring Magazine belt at the Ota-City General Gymnasium in Tokyo in May 2018.
