“Trailerpark” sounds about right as a nickname for Nick Durandt. But he was in no mood for high-minded ideas like objectivity.
GQ Magazine
TELFORD VICE in Cape Town
THE end of Nick Durandt’s forefinger is not a fun place to be. Not when it’s being jabbed in your face, punctuating his increasingly voluble disagreement with you.
You wonder, as you become numbed to the intricacies of his fingerprint strobing at you up close and furiously personal, when that damning digit is going to fold into a fist and flatten your nose against your face to make the point good and proper.
Happily, that never happened at a press conference on a chilly morning a few years ago as Durandt berated me, long and hard, over a nickname. His is, always has been, “Mthakathi” - Wizard - which he earned in 29 years in the fight game by producing 38 world champions, 27 holders of international titles and 95 South African champs. He was named South Africa’s trainer or manager of the year five times from 2002 to 2009. In 2009, he won both awards. Few people anywhere in the boxing world know more about turning out boxing champions than Nick Durandt. “Mthakathi” indeed.
But what did I suggest the editor put above his photograph in an article on trainers for SA Sports Illustrated? “Trailerpark”. Cue, post publication, the finger ...
You can, I hope, see how I got there: the unapologetically inelegant skull cap, the reckless rashers of wild blond hair, the truck driver’s face and its unruly gash of a mouth that spews the language of a Joburg nightclub bouncer, which Durandt used to be. Then there’s the jewelry as clunky as it’s chunky, the foreboding tattoos, and the hulking package all of that makes.
Objectively, “Trailerpark” sounds about right. But Durandt was in no mood for high-minded ideas like objectivity.
“I drive a Merc!” Jab!
“My kids go to private schools!” Jab!
“All I had when I started was a Standard ...” Jab! “Five ...” Jab! “Education!” Jab!
“Now I catch marlin in the Caribbean!” Jab!
“‘Trailerpark’!” Jab!
“Like I’m white trash!” Jab!
“What ...” Jab! “The ...” Fuck?!” Jab!
WTF indeed. I could only promise to make things right in a subsequent issue. But before I was able to convince the editor the magazine folded.
Which seems an apt metaphor for boxing itself - once the richest repository of colour and character in all of sport, now a fading pastiche of itself that struggles for attention. Bastardised strains of competitive combat like mixed martial arts are filling ever more of what used to be boxing’s space in the public consciousness. The sweet science has gone bitter.
Durandt, a gush of colour and character himself, said as much when he hung up his spit bucket for good in May: “I don’t believe I’m doing my fighters any justice by staying in the game and there’s no work. My job is to get them work. The game has changed over the past five years, sadly, and it’s not where it used to be.”
Boxing has suffered in South Africa because it has disappeared from SABC television screens in a standoff over money with promoters. The blackout has officially ended thanks to government intervention but the fights offered to viewers are, to be kind, of modest attraction.
Globally, boxing is in trouble because for too long too many ring robots like the Klitschko brothers and too few drawcards like Floyd Mayweather Jnr have ducked through the ropes.
That didn’t wash with veteran promoter Rodney Berman, who told GQ: “When I started in boxing in 1970 people used to talk about the golden years of the ’50s. Then, when I got to 1980, they used to talk about the golden years of the ’60s. Now they’re talking about the golden years of the ’70s ...”
Berman also took issue with the view that South African boxing was particularly groggy. Then again, he has an exclusive broadcast contract with SuperSport.
“When I started in boxing I was privileged to have (former South African middleweight champion) Charlie Weir as our first fighter,” he said. “We would open booking and on the first day we would sell 3 000 tickets. Now, if we sell 1 500 for the whole tournament we’re looking good.
“But very few people saw Charlie Weir fight live because the footage was always canned. Sponsorship was relatively negligible because of the limited exposure.
“These days, the arena holds about 2000 people but I can tell you that, off the top of my head, SuperSport have four or five million decoders in the country. They’ve got more throughout Africa.
“The percentage of those decoders tuned to the boxing far exceeds any crowd we could hope to get. Because of this, we’re getting much more revenue.”
But money has never been everything in boxing. At least, not for those who watch it from the safe side of the ropes. We need drama. We need danger. We need Durandt.
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