Kallie Knoetze

I've often wondered about the South African heavyweight scene during the Apartheid era and its immediate aftermath. On one hand, they're clearly doing something right with their heavies -- Botha, Sanders, Coetzee, Coetzer, Knoetze, etc. from a compatively small population of Dutch people is a pretty decent haul. And they're sort of a first world country, at least among the ruling minority that these people came from.

On the other hand, they're a bit cut off from the rest of the sporting world, which leaves them to develop boxing in their own directions. And there definitely does seem to have been independent local development going on -- their approach to boxing looks rougher and somewhat distinctive than the other stuff going on elsewhere.

So. An odd little slice of boxing history. Wish there was a book about it.

 

This will probably be a little ham-fisted and I’m hardly a scholar on the topic of South Africa, so take it for what it’s worth, but here’s my socio-economic take on South African heavyweight boxing of a certain era …

South Africa gained its independence from the British, Dutch and (earlier) French colonialists by the early 20th century and became a republic (with a whites-only vote) by around the middle of the century (please correct me if I’m wrong). When apartheid policies were instated, with different rights for different groups of people (white, native and mixed), the world at large was mostly appalled. Thus starting with the 1964 Olympics, the country was banned from the Summer (and Winter, I suppose, should they have had any aspirations) Games.

That left few outlets for the country to put itself on the world stage as far as athletic competition. Apart from the legacy British colonial sporting interests (rugby, soccer and cricket chiefly I think), boxing was one of the few points of entry. The white population was the ruling class but also, from what I understand, the working poor class (among those with actual human rights).

Also, there was a genetic predisposition among that class that produced some larger specimens (probably more heavyweight-sized guys per capita than most European countries and for sure more than most Asian or Latin American countries) owing probably to who settled there and thrived in the colonial era — kind of a survival of the fittest. And heavyweight boxing was where it was at, especially starting with Muhammad Ali becoming the most visible athlete in the world. Also, perhaps owing to the country’s history of colonial wars and the living conditions of geography and climate, it produced a rugged sort (who for whatever reason seemed prone to cultivate very ‘manly’ mustaches). So you have the requisites to produce some heavyweight material.

Likewise, you’ve got a government that as we get into the 1970s and ‘80s that sees value in breaking through in the world sporting scene for political purposes (‘hey look at us, we’ve got some athletes who can compete even though you don’t see us in the Olympics’). They see value in what is today known as ‘sports-washing’ (see more recently the other SA, Saudi Arabia) to gain good PR. They were also putting on Frank Sinatra concerts and the like, paying top dollar, to get press and combat the anti-apartheid movement (while a lot of this was going on, a lot of people in America were boycotting Shell and buying their gas elsewhere because the parent company, Royal Dutch, had strong ties to South Africa including supplying oil to the South African army).

Probably equally (or even more) importantly, you’ve got some wealth (diamond trade and also the Cape has made that area an important world trade outpost for decades) to fund their guys and invest in them. That’s how/why a Bobick could make $300K to fight one of their guys, why they could win bids to have Gerrie Coetzee fight important fights at home. Look at the top South African heavyweights of the 1970s-2000s (from Schutte/Knoetze/Coetzee through Corrie Sanders) and you’ll see them building their resumes off the bones of a lot of American and other fighters who still had names who were exported to South Africa as opponents (note most black African fighters of the same era, regardless of weight class, don’t get that backing — they have to take their act on the road to prove themselves).

So you’ve got kind of a perfect storm for South African heavyweights of a certain color for a period of time to be promoted at a high level and develop.

As for why they were generally crude sluggers, I think there are several factors: the amateur system wasn’t Olympic-based, so they weren’t getting the kind of international seasoning to smooth out the edges. And they weren’t plugged into international coaching in their developmental programs because, well, what good is that going to do when you can’t go to the Olympics? Other countries often imported proven amateur coaches to run their programs or consult on their training routines. So you see a series of Knoetze/Coetzer/Sanders types who are all stand-and-trade guys for the most part because that’s what they know.

Oddly, Coetzee was the exception. See his fight against Knoetze and you’ll see he pulls a runner — a complete stick-and-move act heavy on the move … his feet rarely touch the ground as he wins a pivotal, close decision. Coetzee candidly said he modeled himself after Ali — he wanted to float like a butterfly. He became a different fighter after the bones in his right wrist were surgically fused into basically one bone (due to repeated fractures) and his right hand became lethal. When he KO’d Leon Spinks, he became a puncher and a slugger, although you can see his more boxing-oriented style here and there.

So anyway, that’s a little of what I know and a lot of what I think … mostly it’s what I think I know.

 

The amateur system is a good point that I hadn't considered, although it does make me wonder why they couldn't import good American coaches. If they could pay $300k to feed Bobick to Knoetze, you'd think they could get somewhat regular infusions of advice from outside.

 

Well for starters, I think you can rule out any black American coaches since they wouldn’t have human rights and probably would consider it to be like a Jew working for the Nazis. Probably also a lot of non-black American coaches would consider it the same way.

You think Eddie Futch or Manny Steward was going to go there?

Furthermore, although they could put up a pretty big bounty and go fishing for the right coach, I seriously doubt by that time — remember, South Africa’s only world champion before 1950 was bantamweight Vic Toweel — that they had many connections in world boxing … and then as now it’s as much about who you know as what you know.

In short, boxing in South Africa was still, if not in its infancy, wasn’t far beyond the toddler stage.

The best bet a talent from South Africa had, really, was to go to America (or Europe maybe) to train rather than bring in a coach from elsewhere who may or may not like it well enough to stay, who was willing to follow along with racist laws and politics and keep his mouth shut.

 

Dirty Bushylip clan.

 

You are talking about a work of art, and you obviously are not a patron of the arts.

Sketch a South African heavyweight mustache on the Mona Lisa and its value triples overnight.

 

Good point, yes. And they probably couldn't pick up any Eastern Bloc coaches, either, for ideological reasons. (Fighting the Cubans as they were at the time, IIRC, and the Soviets elsewhere...)

They couldn't get anybody from the Dutch because the Dutch didn't have very good boxers, either. Britain is going to have similar issues to the States. The French might be able to provide people -- France was always weird about being its own thing -- but I doubt they cared much for Apartheid, either.

It's a uniquely difficult problem, building up a boxing industry with lots of talent and funding, but not many connections.

 

I think the truth is that there were good native African boxing coaches elsewhere on the continent, but they (the powers that be, not the individual boxers themselves, some of whom weren’t supportive of apartheid) weren’t going to admit they could learn something from native African practitioners neither were such men likely to move to SA where they had no rights from other places on the continent where they actually did have rights.

 

Latin America might have had suitable people. If they'd looked there.

Guys like Knoetze and Du Plooy would've been scarier with training from good Mexican-style coaches. It would work with that rock-em-sock-em-robots mentality that they already had.

 

Guys like:
Charlie Weir
Pierre Fourie
Jacob Matala
Arnold Taylor
all good sound pros.
stay safe guys.

 

There is a book about it. Chris Greyvenstein's The Fighters. I have it. Sadly my copy has about ten blank pages in the middle due to a misprint. I think SA's heavyweights are a reflection in some ways of the apartheid structure of society. There was a definite requirement to be macho and hardass in white society. Notice that we have produced virtually zero HW fighters of world calibre since then, and the local boxing scene as a whole seems to have withered.

 

Agree with most of this except for the "Sanders is a slugger" comment. Corrie was really quite a good, mobile boxer until he got old and fell in love with his power. I've watched a lot of his early stuff and the man could be quite elusive, when he wanted to be, despite that odd upright stance that he had his whole career. Sanders also modelled himself after Ali apparently, or so he said in his early interviews.

 

There were pretty decent coaches locally too. Guys like Toweel, Volbrecht and later iirc Mitchell were no mugs. Certainly local black boxers had a markedly different style to the iconic SA white heavyweights ... much more cute and elusive in general.

 

Huh. Interesting. So some of the apparent crudity was coming from the fighters themselves rather than the coaches?

So many of them seem to have this upright, limited head movement approach to boxing. Even the mobile guys like Sanders and Coetzee.

Also, the machismo wasn't just in boxing, but extended throughout South African white society?

 

Yes I think so. Look at contemporary fighters like Mitchell for instance. He's got some serious all-round skills and he was local-trained. There were some quasi-heavyweights like Pierre Fourie that were not lacking in skills either.

I agree with you and it's been much commented upon in Sanders' case at least. But if you've followed his career he didn't get hit all that much given his static head. I think the idea was to land the hammer first and then make the other guy suffer.

Yes I would say so. At school caning was a thing and I got my fair share. Games like rugby were par for the course ... people could and did get seriously ****ed up in school level rugby. We had to do cadets with marching drills to prepare for army conscription. Settling an argument with a fight was not out of the ordinary.