The former WBA and IBF junior lightweight world champion went a step further by producing world champions as a trainer and he was first former world boxing champion in Africa to achieve that feat.
Back row from left: successful boxing manager Brian Mitchell and respected boxing tutor Manny Fernandes. Seated from left is IBO junior bantamweight reigning world champ Ricardo Malajika and current WBC world champ Siyakholwa Kuse.
Picture: Supplied/ james@picturesproachieved everlasting fame and a permanent place in the history of boxing through an extraordinary accomplishment of being inducted into the International Hall of Fame in New York in 2009. The former WBA and IBF junior-lightweight world champion went a step further by producing world champions as a trainer, and he was the first former world boxing champion in Africa to achieve that feat.
On September 27 – the day Mitchell won the WBA belt by a 10th-round stoppage of defending champion, Panamanian Alfredo Layne, at Sun City in 1986 – Mitchell will be barking instructions to his two boxers in Tokyo.and Ricardo “Magic Man” Malajika will be involved in WBC world title fights. Kuse will put his mini flyweight belt on the line against WBA regular champion Ryusei Matsumoto while Malajika will oppose three-fight novice Tomoya Tsubooi for the vacant junior bantamweight title.
Malajika and Khuse, who won gold medals in the 2016 Zone 6 in Angola in the amateurs, are managed by Mitchell, who will be assisting boxing teacher Manny Fernandes in the corner.
“Yes, I will be in the corner for both my fighters,” confirmed Mitchell, whose boxers train in his boxing academy in Edenvale. His first world champ as a trainer was Namibian who won the WBO junior-middleweight world belt from revered American Ronald “Winky” Wright at the Carousel, Hammanskraal, on August 22 1988. Cassius “Shy Guy” Baloyi was the first when he won the IBF junior-lightweight belt from Manuel Medina in the US on May 31 2006.
Then the second one was Malajika, whose coach, Mitchell, brought him back to boxing.
“That is why I and my wife, Charlene, started my academy in Edenvale,” said the man who was nicknamed “The Road Warrior”. Malajika won the IBO junior-bantamweight world belt in 2023 under trainer Vusi Mtolo, who was later replaced by Fernandes.
Then came Kuse from Mdantsane, who became the first WBC world champ from the Eastern Cape which has produced IBF, WBA, WBO, WBU and IBO and world champs. The tournament on September 27 will be organised by Teiken Promotions, which is a premier Japanese professional boxing management and promotional company led by owner and promoter Akihiko Honda.
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