Blast from the past: Sweet victory as Sugar Boy clocks England’s Big Benn

1991 — Dingaan Thobela makes the first defence of his WBO lightweight title, convincingly outpointing Mexican Mario Martinez in San Jose, California.

1992 — SA play Sri Lanka in an ODI for the first time, meeting the Asian side in a World Cup encounter in Wellington, New Zealand. Peter Kirsten top-scores with 47 from 81 balls as SA are dismissed for 195. Opener Roshan Mahanama hit 68 and Arjuna Ranatunga an unbeaten 64 from 73 deliveries to steer his team to victory by three wickets with one ball remaining.

1996 — Thulani “Sugar Boy” Malinga survives a sixth-round knock-down to outpoint Englishman Nigel Benn over 12 rounds in Newcastle and lift the WBC super-middleweight title. It was Malinga’s third tilt at a world title, and the win made him the first SA boxer to claim a WBC belt.

2002 — Former president Nelson Mandela goes to watch Baby Jake Matlala engage in his final professional boxing fight, stopping Juan Herrera of Colombia in the seventh round at Carnival City to retain his WBU junior-flyweight title. Matlala had actually failed to make the limit at the weigh-in the previous day, but the boxing authorities — including WBU president Jon Robinson and SA commission chair Dr Peter Ngatane — turned a blind eye at the weigh-in. Matlala, who held four world titles, departed the sport with a record of 53 wins, 13 losses and two draws. There were four other marginal world title bouts on the same card, Silence Mabuza won the IBO bantamweight title when he stopped Jose Sanjuanelo of Colombia in the sixth round, WBU junior-lightweight champion Phillip Ndou stopped Nikolai Eremeev of Russia in the sixth round, WBU cruiserweight champion Sebastiaan Rothmann outpointed Englishman Garry Delaney and Stephan Carr was stopped in the second round of his bid for the IBO junior-welterweight title by Pablo Sarmiento of Argentina.