Most critics and fans who complain about boring bouts probably don’t know about the night a champion retained his title in a non-fight.
The champion failed to beat the challenger and neither did they draw in a tournament that was held abroad because they were not allowed to fight in their own country.
The result was one of the strangest in the long history of Commonwealth boxing. The referee was so frustrated by the lack of action that he sent both boxers to their corners and declared their “fight” a no-contest.
It happened in 1961 in what is now Zambia, where two South Africans, Dennis Adams and John Mthimkulu, were supposed to fight for the Commonwealth flyweight title.
Adams, known as a devastating puncher, was from Johannesburg. The challenger, who held the “non-white” version of the SA flyweight title, was from Vereeniging. But because of the SA government’s laws at the time the fight was held at the Luanshya Welfare Grounds in what was then Northern Rhodesia.
The irrepressible Adams had travelled to Scotland in 1957 to challenge the British and Empire flyweight champion, Frankie Jones, in the Kelvin Hall in Glasgow on October 23.
Adams went after the champion from the start, swinging wildly until one of his punches landed, knocking the Scot out in the third round.
The new champion retained the title against Warner Batchelor and Les Smith before a defence was arranged against Mthimkulu. Most boxing enthusiasts expected an exciting clash and the spectators were waiting for fireworks.
Adams had his right hand cocked from the start, waiting to trigger the punch that had brought him 14 knockouts in his previous fights. But Mthimkulu, well aware of the danger, kept back-pedaling and tied Adams up in clinches.
As the fight progressed, the clearly unfit Adams had to resort to holding to prevent his opponent from landing scoring punches.
‘STEP BACK AND FIGHT; STOP HOLDING’
Referee Duggie Miller, a former leading SA middleweight, kept asking the boxers to break out of the clinches, to step back and fight. Time and again he told them to stop holding on to each other.
By the sixth round, Miller had had enough. He sent both fighters back to their corners and signaled that he had called off the “fight”. However, with just about everyone pleading with him to let the boxers carry go on, Miller reversed his decision.
The bout resumed, and so did the holding and clinching. It turned into a farce and in the ninth round Miller stepped in again and declared it a “no-contest”.
The partisan crowd accepted Miller’s decision although many felt Mthimkulu would have won had the fight gone the distance.
According to newspaper reports, Miller explained: “I warned both boys for repeated clutching, holding and pushing in the clinches. I tried to keep them apart, as the public came to see boxing, not wrestling.”
Two undercard fights produced interesting results. Levi Madi was reported to have been extremely unlucky not to come away with a draw against SA lightweight champion Charlie Els and Young Sebela stopped former SA welterweight champion Benny Nieuwenhuizen in the fifth round.
In the last bout, Spider Kelly, who later held the SA welterweight title, beat Katanga lightweight Marcel Tumba. It was Kelly’s third professional fight.
Only days later, on May 31 1961, South Africa became a republic and SA boxers were no longer eligible to hold or fight for Empire titles.
Adams, a real character, delivered a memorable response to questions about losing his title as a result of political changes. “Yes, it took a heavyweight called Hendrik Verwoerd to do it,” he said, referring to the SA prime minister who led South Africa out of the Commonwealth.
