{"id":857335,"date":"2026-08-16T13:32:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-16T13:32:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/857335\/"},"modified":"2026-08-16T13:32:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-16T13:32:09","slug":"ferreira-makes-african-female-boxing-history-by-becoming-continents-first-unified-world-champ","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/857335\/","title":{"rendered":"Ferreira makes African female boxing history by becoming continent\u2019s first unified world champ"},"content":{"rendered":"

August 16 will go down as a historic day for female boxing in Africa after Bernice \u201cThe Badger\u201d Ferreira<\/a>\u2019s humongous achievement of becoming the continent\u2019s first ever unified world champion.<\/p>\n

She achieved the feat at the State Farm Arena in Atlanta, Georgia, in the US, during a month celebrated in South Africa to honour the 20,000 women who marched to the Union Buildings on August 9 1956 in protest against unjust pass laws. National Women\u2019s Day is celebrated on August 9. <\/p>\n

Ferreira, the IBO junior lightweight holder, whose belt was on the line on Sunday morning, added the WBC belt to her collection after dethroning defending champion Caroline \u201cCaro\u201d Veyre.<\/p>\n

French-born Veyre, who fights out of Montreal, was disqualified in round eight for constant holding.<\/p>\n

Veyre had been warned before and lost two points for excessive holding, and the referee finally had enough and stopped the fight.<\/p>\n

Ferreira is the first local female boxer since the first major women\u2019s professional boxing tournament was held in South Africa in 2007 to win the lucrative WBC belt. <\/p>\n

Ferreira remains undefeated after 12 fights. She is from Fietas, a once bustling and thriving area that incorporates the suburbs of Pageview and Vrededorp on the western edge of Johannesburg but now faces significant challenges with a high rate of homelessness, crime, poverty, prostitution and drug abuse.<\/p>\n

Bernice \u201cThe Badger\u201d Ferreira<\/p>\n

Trainer Bernie Pailman<\/a>\u2019s role as cut man was upgraded to head cornerman for the fight as Ferreira\u2019s trainer Arafaat Kock could not travel to Atlanta.<\/p>\n

Apart from guiding Ferreira to a WBC belt, Pailman has produced his own champs, including helping Malcolm \u201cThe Stone\u201d Klassen<\/a> win both the IBF junior lightweight world title in 2009 and IBO belt in 2016.<\/p>\n

Former IBF mini flyweight world champ US-based Deejay Kriel was also part of the winning team.<\/p>\n

Successful trainer-cum-manager Colin \u201cNomakanjani\u201d Nathan<\/a>\u2019s No Doubt Management also produced its first WBC champ, having guided fighters to winning IBO, IBF, WBA, WBO and The Ring belts.<\/p>\n

Speaking from her hotel room, Ferreira said: \u201cIt feels amazing \u2014 like a dream come true. I was praying for this moment and praying that people would notice me, and it still hasn\u2019t sunk in yet.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked what was next for her, she replied: \u201cI don\u2019t know \u2014 you must ask my manager. Whoever they put in front of me, I will fight.\u201d<\/p>\n

Said Nathan: \u201cExactly a year ago, Ferreira was not even a South African champion. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe sport of dreams \u2014 fast forward to now: history was written and a career was changed. South Africa, stand up and clap for Bernice \u201cThe Badger\u201d Ferreira, our first female South African and African unified world champion.”<\/p>\n

Sowetan<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"August 16 will go down as a historic day for female boxing in Africa after Bernice \u201cThe Badger\u201d…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":857336,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[571],"tags":[427659,64,63,427660,427657,802,427658,427656,85,427655],"class_list":["post-857335","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-atlanta-boxing-match","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-bernice-the-badger-ferreira","tag-bernie-pailman-trainer","tag-boxing","tag-colin-nathan-no-doubt-management","tag-fietas-johannesburg-boxer","tag-sports","tag-womens-boxing-africa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/857335","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=857335"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/857335\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/857336"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=857335"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=857335"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=857335"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}