Story audio is generated using AI<\/p>\n
Young boxing trainer Sanele Mthalane, who has produced three KwaZulu-Natal provincial champions, says some people misunderstand him as being troublesome when he raises issues that affect fighters.<\/p>\n
\u201cI get on well with people who believe in the truth,\u201d said Mthalane, the younger brother of retired SA junior-featherweight champion Innocent \u201cThe Baby-Faced Assassin\u201d Mthalane and former two-time IBF flyweight world champion Moruti \u201cBabyface\u201d Mthalane from Lindelani near Durban.<\/p>\n
\u201cI won\u2019t give up until boxers are treated with respect like other athletes.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u2014 \u00a0Sanele Mthalane, Boxing trainer<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously, I will be a problem to those who don\u2019t like the truth.<\/p>\n
\u201cI won\u2019t stand for the exploitation of boxers… that is what causes problems with me and other people, especially trainers, because I am viewed as a bad seed.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mthalane says he\u2019s been like this from when he was involved in the amateur ranks.<\/p>\n
\u201dI have always stood for fairness… the battlefield must be level, with equal treatment for fighters and neutrality from ring officials,\u201c he said.<\/p>\n
\u201dJust recently, I turned down a fight for [super bantamweight] Sanele [\u201cSkelemkey\u201d] Maduna to travel by bus to fight Lwando [\u201cBaseLine\u201d] Mgabi on June 21 in East London.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t have a boxer in my gym [in Durban] who will be transported by bus to East London. <\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s a very long journey, almost the whole day on the road, which is a health hazard.<\/p>\n
\u201cBy the time the fighter arrives there, he\u2019s already exhausted, and then he must still go for the weigh-in and press conference before he can look for food.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can\u2019t take that risk just because I want my percentage [from the boxer\u2019s purse money],\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s blood money, and I don\u2019t want it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mthalane refers to his book The Naked Truth \u2014 To Be Seen, Could Be Assassinated, which was published last year.<\/p>\n
\u201cSome of the topics include the exorbitant fees that sanctioning boxing bodies charge boxers to fight for their belts,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Mthalane, who is fondly known as \u201cChwepheshe\u201d or \u201cBhunu Elimnyama\u201d, added: \u201cI am fighting this alone; I won\u2019t give up until boxers are treated with respect like other athletes in different sporting codes.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sowetan<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Story audio is generated using AI Young boxing trainer Sanele Mthalane, who has produced three KwaZulu-Natal provincial champions,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":726670,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[571],"tags":[64,63,802,352000,351999,351998,85],"class_list":["post-726669","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-boxing","tag-innocent","tag-lindelani","tag-sanele","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/726669","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=726669"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/726669\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/726670"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=726669"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=726669"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=726669"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}