GALLERY: Malajika overcomes knockdowns to clinch belt

STEPPING up to a higher level and taking home the African Boxing Union (ABU) belt, Ricardo Malajika from the South has made his point in the junior bantam weight division.

Four@War boxing tournament was recently held at Emperors Palace and presented by Golden Gloves Promotions (GGP).

The pugilist was not totally convinced by his overall performance on the evening where he lacked defence and was on many occasions off balance throwing his punches. But as the saying goes, a win is a win and Malajika managed to pull through and stop the champion, Mnqobi Mkhize, to win by TKO in the eight round.

The unbeaten Malajika (6-1, 5 KOs) sent Mkhize to the canvas early in round one, but also overcame two knockdowns from the champion during the contest, the last one in round six. This took the boxers to round seven, where Malajika opened up Mkhize’s defence by a bombardment of punches to his head and forced referee Thabo Spampool to step in and stop the fight.

Malajika is trained by former boxer Anton Gilmore from Box Office and is well assisted by Raymond Cerfonteyn.

The main fight saw Rowan Campbell trained by Peter Smith keeping a clean sheet as he took out Nicholas Radley in round four in the catchweight division bout.

Campbell moved up to the light heavyweight division and improved his record by 12-0, 8 knockouts. Radley suffers his first loss as a pro, falling to 9-1, 8 KOs.

The Four@War semi-finals which were initiated by GG’s Rodney Berman, had the four top junior middleweights in South Africa facing each other to determine who will fight in the finals in March 2020.

Former mixed martial arts fighter prospect Boyd Allen managed to stop Tristan Truter in a nail-biting affair right in the 10th and final round.

Allen dished out the most effective punches during the contest while Truter struggled to find his evasive counterpart. Though Truter was believed to be in front on points, Allen turned on the heat in round 10 and caught Truter with a perfectly placed right hand to the head where Truter backed into a corner. Allen culminated the punch to the head with a meticulous left hook also to Truter’s head and referee David van Nieuwenhuizen stepped in to stop the fight.

In the first semi-finals, well-trained Brandon Thysse never had any problems with his opponent, Roarke Knapp, and walked away with the win and became the first finalist for the Four@War contest.

The other results were junior bantamweight Leyton Gloss (6-3, 4 KOs) dropped Arnel Lubisi (3-2, 2 KOs) twice before ending matters in round two. In the opening bout of the Golden Gloves Promotions card, lightweight Katiego Khanyisa defeated Shone van Schalkywk (0-3) by unanimous decision. Scores were 40/36, 40/36, 39/37 for Khanyisa, who was making his pro debut.

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