By Ron Jackson
Promoter Rodney Berman of Golden Gloves Promotions presents a bumper tournament at Emperors Palace near Kempton Park on Saturday night in what potentially could one of the best tournaments seen in recent years, in the Super 4 featherweight competition, involving Tshifiwa Munyai vs Azinga Fuzile and Simphiwe Vetyeka vs Lerato Dlamini.
The tournament will be shown live on SS5 from 19:30-23:30 on Saturday night.
In the first bout of the evening in the Super 4 featherweight competition the vastly more experienced Munyai, 32, who has a record of 28-4-1, 16 KOs, faces the much younger and promising 21-year-old Fuzile (8-0, 3 KOs).
Munyai who is now trained by Warren Hulley made his professional debut nearly 14 years ago and has won the Commonwealth and WBA Intercontinental bantamweight titles and as a junior-featherweight held the IBO and WBA Pan African junior featherweight belts.
However, he has only had one fight in two years since he was stopped in ten rounds by Oscar Chauke when he failed to make the featherweight limit.
In his most recent fight in April this year he came in at the featherweight limit and scored an easy third round stoppage win over Samuel Kapapu 15-10-1; 2.
Fuzile who fights from the southpaw stance and is trained by Mzamo Njekanye only made his pro debut in December 2014 is an outstanding prospect.
In his fifth fight he won the South African featherweight title when he outpointed the experienced Macbute Sinyabi and then went on to make two successful defenses of the title against Sydney Maluleka and Rofhiwa Maemu, winning by wide margins on points.
The questions going into this fight is it a bridge too far for the youngster from Duncan Village or will the veteran have enough to take the decision?
The winners are scheduled to meet in February next year in a 12 round bout for the vacant WBC International featherweight title.
In the second bout of the Super 4 featherweight series the 36-year-old veteran Simphiwe Vetyeka (29-3, 17 KOs) meets the relatively inexperienced Lerato Dlamini (9-1, 6 KOs) who has never fought at the same level as Vetyeka and is somehow rated at number one featherweight in the most recent Boxing SA ratings.
Vetyeka has only had one fight since November 2015 and came in well over the featherweight limit at the pre-fight medical, so the question is does he have enough left to take on the limited Dlamini who was born in the Free State, but is now fighting out of Colin Nathan’s Hotbox gym in Glenhazel.
Again it is a question of youth versus experience which makes this an interesting match-up.
Also on the card is a mini-flyweight bout scheduled for eight rounds between Deejay Kriel (12-1-1, 6 KOs) and Thembelani Okolo (6-2-1, 2 KOs) and former South African light-heavyweight champion Ryno Liebenberg (17-5, 12 KOs), who has relinquished the SA title and come down to super-middleweight to face Patrick Mukula (9-0, 8 KOs),the current WBA Pan African super-middleweight champion from the DRC, who fights out Ashley Fourie’s Randburg gym. There is no title at stake and the bout is scheduled for ten rounds.