Can Chris Thompson retain the slippery South African heavyweight title?
Chris Thompson takes on the power punching Keaton Gomes in defense of his South African and ABU heavyweight titles over 12 rounds on the 11th of December at Emperor’s Palace on a card entitled “Young Guns.”
The South African heavyweight title has lately been a revolving door of sorts. There seems to be no continuity with a string of fighters losing the belt in their maiden title defense. Tian Fick, who picked up the vacant strap with a win over Josh Pretorius, had it wrested from him by Juan Roux in an all-out war. Big things were expected from Roux, but then Pretorius put on a boxing clinic to finally win the title himself, as well as the vacant ABU belt. That was also short lived, as Pretorius just could not cope with the slick moves of the southpaw Thompson, who took the titles from him in his next fight.
Fresh off a visit to the UK where he served as a sparring partner for British heavyweight, Nathan Gorman, the athletic Thompson will be looking to buck that trend.
Although it was many moons ago, Thompson has been stopped before by Akani Phuzi. Gomes who has six knockouts in his eight wins and is coming off two first round knockouts will be taking heart from that.
On the flipside, Gomes was outboxed in his two losses, both against Lebo Mashitoa. Thompson has shown against Pretorius that he can stick to a game plan and is a master of boxing on the back foot. It will be interesting to see whether Gomes has learned to cut off the ring. He will need to against Thompson.
Popular Rowan Campbell will be looking to rebound off back-to-back losses when he takes on Thembani Mhlanga in a six round super middleweight bout.
Once beaten junior middleweight prospect Phikelani Khumalo takes on Jackson Kaptein in a very evenly matched six-rounder.
