Welkom – Free State boxers will make their professional boxing debuts at the No to GBV Tournament in Thohoyandou, Limpopo, on 31 July.

Steve “Kid” Nortjé (23) and Paul “The Timer” Fick (32), both from Welkom, will compete in the cruiserweight division at the event.

Nortjé was born in Welkom and attended Goudveld High School.

He has participated in seven amateur bouts and made the switch to professional boxing this year. He fights in the orthodox style.

Fick was born in Bloemfontein and now resides in Bedelia, Welkom. He is 1,83 m tall and also fights in the orthodox style.

Both boxers will compete against Khodani Nephalama.

Boxing promoter Promise Moyo is organising the event. Her journey as a boxing promoter and manager started in 2013 when she began managing Phillip “The Timebomb” Ndou and two Tanzanian boxers.

She currently manages five boxers and has successfully promoted eight tournaments, including six international tournaments with television coverage.

Her first tournament took place in August 2015, where Ndou fought in his homeland for the first time in his career. The international bout received media coverage locally and internationally.

Following the tournament, Moyo received a three-page spread in Women Forbes Africa magazine and was featured in Face Impression.

Moyo and Ndou are co-founders of the Timebomb & Ironlady Foundation and both are Boxing South Africa licensees.

Ndou is a boxing coach and Moyo manages him, although he retired in 2016. The couple have a gym based in Riebeeckstad where they conduct one-on-one boxing sessions and group sessions.

“Phillip is the only boxer in the country that has a television series, which is six episodes an hour each. The first boxer to have a pound for pound belt in the continent,” said Moyo.

She brings expertise in project management, events management, strategic change management, monitoring and evaluation, human resources management and office administration.

Moyo’s working career started in 1995 when she worked as a secretary for PMY Architect.

From 1996 to 2012 she worked at the City of Johannesburg Municipality, starting as a receptionist typist clerk and spending her last six years as deputy director of Urban Management and Services Delivery.

Her main duties included identifying service delivery defects, ensuring municipal owned entities responded according to signed level agreements, facilitating clean-up campaigns and operational blitzes, synchronising municipal entities’ programmes, and preparing analytical reports for the director, councillors and city manager.

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