C-40
NEW AGE POSTING
Gerrie Coetzee, former WBA heavyweight champion, dies at 67
Gerrie Coetzee, a former South African boxer and WBA heavyweight champion who defied some of his country's racist laws during the height of apartheid in the 1970s and 1980s and won popularity with Nelson Mandela and both Black and white fans, has died. He was 67.
Coetzee, who was white, was the first African boxer to win a world heavyweight title. He knocked out American rival Michael Dokes in the 10th round in Richfield, Ohio, in 1983 to win the WBA belt, a big upset that was celebrated throughout South Africa despite it being fragmented at the time by the apartheid laws of racial segregation. Coetzee's victory also made him the first white boxer to win a world heavyweight title in more than 20 years but he made clear after the fight against Dokes how much he disliked being labeled "the great white hope." Coetzee said one of his most treasured moments came when Mandela, a big boxing fan, asked to meet him in the early 1990s. Mandela, who would become South Africa's first democratically-elected president in 1994, had just been released from prison after 27 years for fighting against apartheid.
Click Here For Full Story