Announced by Minister of Sport, Arts and Culture Gayton McKenzie in February, the Steve Tshwete Boxing Series is still going to be part of the South African fistic calendar.
Scheduled to start two months ago, the Steve Tshwete Boxing Series has been delayed because of the slow pace in developing its concept.
“Work to develop the concept and implementation plan for the Steve Tshwete Boxing Series is currently underway between BSA and DSAC. Once the implementation framework is approved, BSA licensees will be duly informed and brought on board,” boxing promoters were told in a meeting with the Boxing South Africa (BSA) board last week.
It was once again announced at Freedom Park, Pretoria, in March that the Steve Tshwete Boxing Series would feature 72 boxers from South Africa’s nine provinces and was going to start in East London.
It would pit the best boxers province by province and would follow a point system. And the province with the most points would occupy the top position.
“Within 60 days we are going to have the Steve Tshwete tournament in East London at the new Orient Theatre, the home of boxing,” McKenzie said in March.
“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.”
BSA chief executive officer Tsholofelo Tsholofelo Lejaka said at the time: “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.
“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.”
The Steve Tshwete Boxing Series is going to be promoted by BSA-licensed 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 in March.
