Little Thomas Oosthuizen sat on the floor of Harold Volbrecht's gym in Boksburg this week and watched with innocent eyes as his father trained.
But more telling was the way Tommy Gun looked back at his kid. If anyone can motivate the talented, wayward southpaw to stay off drugs and booze and keep out of jail, it's his bundle of 10-month-old joy.
Oosthuizen made his official return to boxing this week at a press conference packed with Rodney Berman's top fighters at Emperors Palace, where he is scheduled to fight again on September 1.
He hasn't been in the ring since May 2017 but his star status from yesteryear was still evident as he overshadowed even the boxers topping the promoter's bill this Saturday - IBO welterweight title challenger Tulz Mbenge and Oosthuizen's likely opponent in the spring, cruiserweight Thabiso Mchunu.Saturday will also mark four months and 20 days since Oosthuizen went clean, and this occasion - unlike several failed attempts before - he wants to stick it out.
"I've made that choice for myself," said the boxer who spent three-and-a-half months in jail after being arrested in possession of crystal meth.
"Nobody made any choice for me this time around ... it's time to get my life on track.
"My son, being incarcerated and being away from him so long, that really had a big effect on me.
"In the cell the whole day I couldn't run away from my problems with the nonsense I usually got up to, drinking, being involved with substances."
If he'd wanted, Oosthuizen could have fed his appetite for tik, Cat and dagga inside Boksburg prison, where he sat as an awaiting-trial prisoner after being denied bail.
"It's easier to get drugs inside prison than outside," said Oosthuizen, released in mid-May after pleading guilty and getting a five-year suspended sentence.Life inside was tough. "Being a sports star, they don't take it easier on you. The gangsters, they'll come test you."
On one occasion Oosthuizen was walking back to his cell after receiving shopping bags of goodies from a visitor when some thugs surrounded him.
"They tore the bags and everything fell out. I just started hitting them - they saw this guy will fight for what's mine."
On other occasions, banditos - the term they use for sentenced prisoners - would demand items, like the shoes on his feet.
"I say 'no' and they're, 'you think I'm playing with you?' I told them straight away, 'you can have my shoes, but you have to take them. Somebody will die here.'
"When I went inside I was prepared to die. If you let people walk over you in there, you become somebody's slave. That's not me."
Cigarettes and airtime were currency to barter for other goods and even food that was meant for the prisoners.
"The banditos work with the food; they sell it. If you don't have [anything] from visits for meat, then they give you a piece of meat this size," he said, pressing his thumb into his forefinger to show the size of a R5 coin. "If you're lucky you get soup and veggies on the same day. They're even selling the bread."
The plumbing was a mess, with toilets not flushing and taps running permanently.
For warm water they ran live wires from an overhead light, attaching them to a contraption of flattened food tins and broken toothbrushes that worked like an element, heating water in a bucket.
But the hardest part came during visits, where he was deprived of physical contact with little Tommy by the solid glass dividing prisoners from their loved ones."He cried the first time I brought Tommy to visit him," recalled fiancée Franzelle Fourie, a school teacher. "He's actually a softy. We've had our ups and downs, but he's a sweetheart."
Oosthuizen, Fourie and little Tommy are staying with relatives as the boxer pulls his life together, which includes repairing damaged relationships with parents and siblings.
He was arrested for domestic violence last year after "the week of Tommy's terror" directed at his parents as revenge for cutting him off. By the time he was detained in February this year, he was at rock bottom.
Oosthuizen has rejoined his old church and he's back with Volbrecht, plotting his next fight. Even hitting the bags, he and the veteran trainer choreographed combinations for Mchunu. He's not assuming he'll be as slick as when he was at his peak. "All I can do is prepare and put in the hard work."
There's a paunch where he once sported a six pack, but Oosthuizen didn't slack off, not even during the tough stomach-crunching exercises, chatting and smiling with stablemates through the discomfort and pain.
Even that is better than prison...