There are no plans to abandon the Steve Tshwete Boxing Series, a tournament, which was confirmed by Minister of Sport Gayton McKenzie in Pretoria last month.
This was the assurance from acting Boxing South Africa (BSA) chief executive officer Tsholofelo Lejaka responding to questions around the tournament.
“We are still processing it internally. It’s definitely going ahead and we will give an update at the right time,” Lejaka said.
Lejaka revealed that this tournament is going to feature 72 boxers from South Africa’s nine provinces. The series is going to pit the best boxers province by province and will follow a point system with the province that has the most points occupying the top position.
“The Steve Tshwete Boxing Series, we are going to run it as a league. The competition is boxer to boxer, province to province. Each province will put together eight boxers, you multiply that by nine, that’s 72,” Lejaka said.
“The 72 boxers are gonna be fighting across the board. When you fight as a boxer, you are gonna be fighting for yourself. A knockout carries a particular point, a unanimous decision win a particular point, a split decision a particular point.”
This Steve Tshwete Boxing Series is going to be promoted by licenced BSA promoters, who will be given a chance to bid in order to host tournaments.
“We know that Boxing South Africa is a regulator, we don’t do tournaments. This is the opportunity for promoters. We will go into a bidding process,” Lejaka said.
McKenzie said last month: “We are putting in serious money in boxing. Boxing is part of our budget. Within 60 days we are going to have the Steve Tshwete tournament in East London at the new Orient Theatre, the home of boxing.
“I want to see which is the best province. I will make sure that Steve Tshwete’s grandchildren together with their parents are going to be flown to the tournaments so that they can see what a great man their grandparent was.” – Monwabisi Jimlongo
