Boxing SA should consider supporting foreign boxers who live and hone their skills here in SA, pleads accomplished gym owner, trainer and manager Jodi Solomon.
"When SA-based foreign boxers fight abroad, ring announcers give the boxers name, obviously, the country they were born and also make it clear that they fight out of South Africa," she said on Thursday.
Solomon was in the corner when her SA-based Malawian boxer Isaac "Golden Boy" Chilemba failed to dethrone unified WBA, IBF and WBO world light heavyweight champion Sergey Kovalev in Russia on July 11 2016.
When SA-based foreign boxers fight abroad, ring announcers give the boxers name, obviously, the country they were born and also make it clear that they fight out of South Africa.
— Trainer and manager Jodi Solomon
She co-owns the gym in Craighall, north of Johannesburg, with American Roy Jones Jr – the former multiple world champ in four weight division – who is considered one of the greatest boxers of all time.
"America and the UK have a huge boxing infrastructure due to the fact that those countries are happy to promote good boxers irrespective of where they are from, which guarantees sponsors and television because fans get to watch the best boxers," said Solomon.
Regulations here prohibit foreign fighters from engaging in SA title fights.
"You can't be doing the same thing over and over again and expect different results; that's the definition of insanity, that's according to Albert Einstein [a German-born theoretical physicist who is best known for developing the theory of relativity and also made important contributions to quantum theory]," she said.
Solomon has worked with veteran promoters Lou DiBella and Kathy Duva, who were inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in New York in 2020.
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