Ladysmith, once the heartland of boxing in KwaZulu-Natal, is about to see its old pugilistic fortunes revived.<\/p>\n
Since the hard-fighting Malinga cousins \u2014 Maxwell \u201cShaluza Max\u201d and Thulani \u201cSugarboy\u201d, both from Steadville \u2014 hung up their gloves, nothing much has happened. <\/p>\n
Now, uMnambithi believes it is on the verge of celebrating a new champion again, with all eyes on the title fight at the Portuguese Hall in Durban on Saturday.<\/p>\n
Ladysmith homeboy Sthembiso Maduna has vowed to become the KZN featherweight champion and hopes that will pave the way to challenging for national honours.<\/p>\n
Once trained by Thulani but now under the guidance of Sanele \u201cBhunu Elimnyama\u201d Mthalane in Lindelani, near Durban, Maduna is ranked as the ninth contender for the SA featherweight title currently held by Lindelani Sibisi of Dundee.<\/p>\n
Maduna will take on Tholumusa \u201cMfundisi\u201d Ngema on a Syathaba Promotion card.<\/p>\n
We\u2019ve got everything going for us \u2014 skill, experience and reach. That will be too much for him, just as it was for Khanyiseni Mbokazi in October<\/p>\n
\u2014 \u00a0Sanele Mthalane, coach of Sthembiso Maduna<\/p>\n
Ngema, from Esikhawini near Richards Bay, previously held the WBF junior featherweight title when he was based in Johannesburg and trained by Bernie Pailman.<\/p>\n
Maduna\u2019s coach, Mthalane (brother of multi-title holder Moruti Mthalane), however, painted an upbeat picture, saying, \u201cthere is nothing special about Ngema\u201d, we just want to hurt him from the start. \u201cWhether he will hear the bell going into the 10th round is entirely up to him.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve got everything going for us \u2014 skill, experience and reach. That will be too much for him, just as it was for Khanyiseni Mbokazi in October,\u201d Mthalane added. <\/p>\n
Ngema\u2019s last fight was in 2024, when he also defeated Mbokazi<\/p>\n
Maduna has racked up 13 wins and six losses, compared to Ngema\u2019s six wins, three defeats and three draws.<\/p>\n
Maxwell Malinga was South Africa\u2019s first boxing champion from Ladysmith. He held both welterweight and middleweight belts. He later trained his cousin, Thulani, who won the SA title in more than one weight division. Maxwell\u2019s biggest achievement, under Gauteng trainer Nick \u201cMthakathi\u201d Durandt<\/a>, came in 1996, at the age of 42, when he dethroned Nigel Benn in a WBC super middleweight fight in England.<\/p>\n Sowetan<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ladysmith, once the heartland of boxing in KwaZulu-Natal, is about to see its old pugilistic fortunes revived. Since…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":501000,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[447],"tags":[703,200218,49,48,200220,200219,200216,82,200222,200217,200221],"class_list":["post-500999","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-boxing","tag-boxing-history-ladysmith","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-maxwell-malinga-legacy","tag-portuguese-hall-durban","tag-sanele-mthalane","tag-sports","tag-sthembiso-maduna","tag-syathaba-promotion","tag-thulani-sugarboy-malinga"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/500999","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=500999"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/500999\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/501000"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=500999"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=500999"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=500999"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}