A Boxing Memory: Gerrie Coetzee

A Boxing Memory: Gerrie Coetzee

We only seem to remember past and sometimes forgotten fighters when it’s too late. Retirement comes and the often fickle boxing fanbase forgets, moves on and often barely gives a second thought to what has gone before. The present carries far more weight than the past. The death of the former WBA heavyweight champion of the world Gerrie Coetzee aged just 67 in the early days of 2023 after a short battle with an aggressive form of lung cancer is another sad reminder of this. It’s beyond sad in many ways, a story worth telling and remembering and someone taken when he had so many years ahead of him.

Coetzee lived his life and fought his career in that unforgivable era of apartheid in his native South Africa and a largely forgettable generation of heavyweights. That’s not to say those times were devoid of talented big men, that’s the crying shame of that era. The politics and more of the 80s sucked away the discipline and ambition of the heavyweight contenders that deserved better.

A vocal critic of apartheid, his country and his career in isolation Coetzee had to fight many things in his life, bad luck among them. His patented right hand needed multiple operations and his so-called ‘bionic’ hand held him back and cost him plenty in many ways. A reign as the WBA heavyweight champion of the world was cut short in controversial circumstances by Greg Page when the round he was knocked out in ran over by nearly a minute in 1984. Earlier in the contest Page had landed punches after the bell and the South African wasn’t allowed the time he should have had to recover. Complaints were lodged about the result, but the expected call to overturn it never came. Coetzee never got a chance to reclaim his title he had sensationally won from Michael Dokes the previous year. The loss to Page effectively ended his career, Coetzee came to London in 1986 with little ambition, and the softer unmotivated former world champion was blown away inside a round by Frank Bruno in a world title eliminator. Coetzee claimed he threw the fight, either way, his career has a serious heavyweight contender was over and he retired. But the inevitable return to the ring came many years later. A series of comebacks, for ‘fun’ from 1993 through to 1997 saw three wins against modest opposition and ended when he was into his forties at the hands of Iran Barkley who stopped him in 10 rounds. A Trivial Pursuit question if ever there was one.

Before he faded away to become just another statistic another name in the record books that very few would look up, Coetzee was one of the better fighters of that era of 1980s heavyweights. Coetzee was born in Johannesburg in 1955, fighting was perhaps always going to be his calling despite early thoughts of becoming a dental technician. His dad was the head of an amateur boxing club and Coetzee joined the family trade. After 192 amateur fights and 185 wins Coetzee turned professional in 1974. The pro career started well, Coetzee ran his record to 22-0, including an excellent win over his old amateur rival and his fellow South African Kallie Knoetze, but it was his one round shellacking of the former world heavyweight champion Leon Spinks that got him noticed on the world stage.

Coetzee had two attempts to win the world heavyweight title prior to his upset win over Dokes. The win over Spinks earned him a fight with John Tate for the WBA version of the heavyweight jigsaw. Over 80,000 fans packed into the Loftus Versfeldst Rugby Stadium in Pretoria hoping to see a new champion crowned. The fight didn’t really take off and Tate won going away. South Africa in its time of much prejudice were in world sporting isolation and the ruling government needed the fight for many reasons and the fight allowed the shackles of discrimination to be temporarily removed and blacks and whites were allowed to sit together. Politicians at ringside were protected by a plethora of armed guards, an army of security and guard dogs were hired to keep the peace. Make no mistake, the fight was highly controversial at the time, a sporting boycott broken. Thankfully, times have changed.

When Coetzee got back to winning ways he landed a fight with Mike Weaver in 1980 and when Weaver knocked him out in 13 rounds, Coetzee was becoming boxing’s nearly man. The following year despite knocking down Renaldo Snipes twice, he dropped a split-decision. But four more wins and then a draw with Pinklon Thomas earned him a third and almost certainly his final try at heavyweight gold against the unbeaten Michael Dokes. The latest holder of the WBA title was heavily favoured to beat Coetzee and was labelled by some as the best heavyweight since Muhammad Ali. But the 5-1 underdog despite again injuring his right hand in the fight upset Dokes, a champion who was drifting into his own self-inflicted abyss, by knocking him out in 10 rounds. Coetzee looked a reborn fighter that night in Richfield, his new trainer Jackie McCoy gave him the confidence that he had lacked previously. Coetzee became the first white world heavyweight champion since Ingemar Johansson in 1960 and South Africa’s first ever claimant to the heavyweight throne. Despite the prejudice that lingered in his native South Africa, Coetzee wanted to be portrayed as the people’s champion and not be a figurehead of what was happening back home.

A line in an article of the time, said in boxing black and white can add up to green, and the sport has never been shy in playing the race card and exploiting racism at the expense of making enough of the dirty dollar. Talk of a blockbuster fight with the unbeaten WBC heavyweight champion Larry Holmes began almost immediately. Holmes had been there before in his fight with Gerry Cooney, and a fight with Coetzee had the obvious angle attached to it. The fight was made for Las Vegas June 1984, but when the finance fell away so did the fight. An earlier offer for Holmes to fight Coetzee in South Africa for a reported $30 million was rejected by Holmes. But talk of a fight with Holmes was still ripe until Greg Page made any such talk redundant when he beat Coetzee in those controversial circumstances in South Africa.

Coetzee always hated what was happening in his country and the great white hope label that followed him, and he once said, “I feel I am fighting for everybody, black and white.” In retirement he promoted black fighters and in the 1980s his house was searched and he was issued with a court summons for training a black fighter despite the strict aprtheid laws of the time. Coetzee never did pay that summons and then subsequently legally adopted that fighter. Coetzee was awarded The Order of Ikhamanga in Bronze in 2003 by South Africa’s democratically-elected post-apartheid government for his services to boxing and his contribution to nation-building through sport.