Gerrie Coetzee passed away this week after suffering from an illness and many may never have heard of him before. Muhammad Ali's widow is helping promote the film "Against All Odds" which is about to start production which is about Gerrie Coetzee's boxing career. This should be a great story as apparently he was all for ending apartheid and I don't know the full story. Very few people do and why I am looking forward to watching this film when it is released.
The Boksburg Bomber was the nickname given to Gerrie Coetzee the first South Africa World Heavyweight Boxing Champion. This may not seem such a big deal today but back then this was big news. South Africa was blocked from participating in world sports so the country was starved of any competition.
I can recall myself as a teenager back in 1983 staying up to watch the fight that was scheduled at 4.30am. Everyone I knew was also staying up as this was a special event that didn't happen often. The only international sport we had seen up till then involving international teams was the 1981 New Zealand All Back Rugby Tour also a 4.30 am alarm clock special.
Gerrie Coetzee knocked Michael Dokes to his knee in the 5th round and finally shocked the boxing world by landing a right hook in the tenth having Dokes counted out. Don King was Dokes's promoter and like he always does swapped boxers and left the ring with Gerrie Coetzee. Don King always made sure he was the promoter for the champion and this time he had a white Afrikaans man from Boksburg on his books.
I never paid much to the political goings on back then as there was so much propaganda happening. We had some demonstrations locally which were beaten down by the army and police but Gerrie Coetzee winning against an African American boxer would not have been part of the plans for those fighting apartheid.
What I can recall about Gerrie Coetzee is he had a great right hand which was his weakness as well as he fractured his hand when knocking Dokes out. In his World Heavyweight title defence bout against Frank Bruno the rumor was he was fighting with a broken right hand which would make sense with the performance shown as he was beaten easily. I am sure the payout was worth his while as he retired after the fight never to be seen again.
I just hope the film does his life story justice as I have read a little about what he got up to and this should be a great watch. He adopted a black boxer to stay with him which was taboo back then especially in South Africa as races were segregated. Let us just say I have heard Afrikaners in the past brag that Boksburg was the only place that you could be guaranteed a white Christmas. Boksburg in December is summer time in South Africa so they were not referencing the weather.