Story audio is generated using AI<\/p>\n
Bernice \u201cThe Badger\u201d Ferreira could have punched her ticket to real fame and fortune by winning the WBC junior lightweight belt in a high-profile tournament that featured mega star Claressa Shields at the State Farm Arena in Atlanta, Georgia, on Sunday morning.<\/p>\n
This is according to WBC board governor, doctor and former Boxing SA board chair Malefetsane Ngatane.<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cHeavyweight promoters could have been there and seen what Ferreira is made of,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you fight in such a high-profile tournament, featuring an accomplished boxer like Shields, promoters look at you for a future appearance in their shows. <\/p>\n \u201cChances of her defending outside home are there, and that is how she will be able to make good money.\u201d<\/p>\n The purse money for her unification fight against Caroline Vyer has not been publicly disclosed by promoters or athletic commissions.<\/p>\n Ngatane hopes Ferreira will have the opportunity to defend without threats of her title being stripped because of non-defence.<\/p>\n He said financial muscle is a big issue for SA world boxing champions defending their titles at home.<\/p>\n Ngatane said Dewald Mostert and Vini Grogor paid a lot to stage WBC championship fights here. <\/p>\n Mostert staged Kevin Lerena\u2019s<\/a> successful WBC bridgerweight title fight against Ukrainian Serhiy Radchenko at SunBet Arena in Pretoria on May 1 last year.<\/p>\n Grogor brought WBF mini flyweight champ Melvin Jerusalem from the Philippines to defend against Siyakholwa Kuse<\/a> on March 16 at Emperors Palace, where Kuse<\/a> ended his reign on points.<\/p>\n \u201cEverything is done in dollars,\u201c said Ngatane. \u201cLet\u2019s say Jerusalem demanded $100,000 (R1.6m) to come here.\u201d<\/p>\n Mexican WBC president Mauricio Sulaiman attended the tournament staged by Grogor\u2019s Golden Gloves.<\/p>\n \u201cAs a WBC board member, I am very proud that slowly South Africans are getting into the game of the WBC,\u201d said Ngatane.<\/p>\n Ferreira\u2019s victory, which came by way of Vyer being disqualified in round eight for constant holding, made Ferreira the first female in SA to win the WBC belt.<\/p>\n She is the first in Africa to unify belts and the third WBC African female champ. The first two were Zambian Catherine Phiri, followed by Kudakwashe Chiwandire from Zimbabwe.<\/p>\n Boxing SA board chair Ayanda Khumalo said: \u201cWhat a historic moment. She has made us super proud.\u201d<\/p>\n Shields is widely regarded as one of the best female fighters in history.<\/p>\n Nicknamed \u201cThe GWOAT\u201d (Greatest Woman of All Time), the American recaptured the WBC and WBA middleweight world belts.<\/p>\n She stopped Australian Kaye Scott in the sixth round, becoming the first undisputed champion in three divisions of the four-belt era.<\/p>\n Sowetan<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Story audio is generated using AI Bernice \u201cThe Badger\u201d Ferreira could have punched her ticket to real fame…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":858362,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[571],"tags":[428630,64,63,802,428633,428631,428634,85,428632],"class_list":["post-858361","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-african-boxing-history","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-boxing","tag-caroline-vyer","tag-female-boxing-champions","tag-kudakwashe-chiwandire","tag-sports","tag-wbc-belt-africa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/858361","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=858361"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/858361\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/858362"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=858361"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=858361"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=858361"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}