He may be a little rusty after two and a half years without any action in the ring, but anyone who wants to write off Tommy “Tommy Gun” Oosthuizen as a professional boxer at this stage, is doing so at his own risk.

This was shown by Oosthuizen on Saturday night at The Metropolis, a new venue in the Parkview Centre in the East of Pretoria, during the “Battle of the Giants 6” boxing tournament.

Oosthuizen, a two-time world champion, celebrated his return to the ring after an absence of about 30 months with a majority decision victory over the Congolese, Youssouf Mwanza.

The majority decision result (one of the three judges declared the fight tied with 76 points each) is very questionable and it is perhaps a sign of the quality of some of the officials at the tournament, as Oosthuizen, despite his ring-rustiness, still largely dominated the fight and easily won at least seven of the eight rounds.

The lanky boxer has at times displayed his exceptional talent and hand speed, but he has also relied heavily on his experience, especially on defence.

His accuracy was not yet what it could be, but Oosthuizen hit with much more good shots than his opponent, who was never really a threat to the former star boxer from the East Rand.

However, questions can be asked about Oosthuizen’s explosive power in this weight division against boxers who are used to enduring punishment from opponents with a lot of power behind their fists.

One can assume that with his height (1.93m) he will always struggle with his weight in the super middleweight division, where he has achieved most of his success as a boxer, but maybe he should at least try to work back to the light heavyweight division, where he will be more effective and likely to end fights with a knockout blow.

However, Oosthuizen has unequivocally proved that he is far from finished in the ring and his self-declared dream of becoming a world champion again is certainly not unattainable.

— The other five fights during Saturday night’s “Battle of the Warriors 6” tournament also yielded considerable action.

Promising Chris Thomson, who has also moved up one weight division, is boxing as a heavyweight these days. He finished his Malawian opponent, Mussa Ajibu, in the third round.

The tournament’s only women’s fight also attracted a lot of attention. Simangele Hadebe finally won this exciting and action-packed fight with a unanimous points decision against Thema Zuma and with that she won the vacant South African Female Flyweight title.

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