Phumelela Cafu’s psyche is still embedded in East London Duncan Village’s carefree mentality, even ahead of his life-changing bout, not understanding that a minor mistake could jeopardise his career.
He is scheduled to engage in a money-spinning WBC and WBO junior-bantamweight title unification fight against American Jesse “Bam” Rodriguez in Frisco, Texas on July 19, becoming the first boxer in the Eastern Cape to do so.
While understanding that winning the fight would change his life forever, owing to the purse involved, Cafu did not fathom that he needed to start changing his routine as early as now.
To unwind before starting camp, the 26-year-old decided to go ice-skating in Johannesburg without informing his mentor, Colin Nathan.
“I said I could just take it easy before the camp, and I decided to try new things such as ice-skating,” he said, laughing.
But on hearing about the outing, Nathan blew his top, admonishing the boxer about the fundamentals of being a world champion.
“I was surprised when Colin told me never to do that again as it could jeopardise everything.
“Look, I grew up in Duncan Village, where we take life easy and by doing anything without thinking about repercussions.”
Nathan confirmed that he gave Cafu a piece of his mind when he heard about the ice-skating.
“He could have risked an injury there and that would have jeopardised everything I have worked so hard to achieve for him,” he said.
“He had never ice-skated before and to do it right before the life-changing bout of his life was crazy.”
Nathan, however, admitted that he understood Cafu’s position as he was still grappling with doing things differently from the boy who grew up in a simple life in Duncan Village.
“He is a boxer, not an ice-skater, so why risk an injury for fun?”
While this can easily be dismissed as a non-issue, it underlines Nathan's meticulous planning for the latest, biggest fight involving a South African boxer on the world stage.
The clash is already dominating international boxing headlines, listed alongside other big bouts also scheduled on July 19.
This includes the undisputed world heavyweight title rematch between Oleksandr Usyk and Daniel Dubois in London, Filipino boxing legend Manny Pacquiao’s ring return against Mario Barrios for the WBC welterweight title in Las Vegas, as well as a highly anticipated WBC junior-middleweight title rematch between Sebastian Fundora and Tim Tszyu as a co-feature to Pacquiao-Barrios.
Cafu has 14 wins with eight short-route victories, while Rodriquez is undefeated after 21 fights and has 14 knockout wins.
Cafu said the last time he fought against a southpaw was on July 29 2022 when he stopped Ben Mananquil from the Philippines.
“I dominated before stopping him in round five,” he said. “I feel like Rodriquez is much better than Ben.
“I am expecting a good fight and he's going to bring it to me because he does not seem comfortable going backwards, but what he does I will do it twice as well.”
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