Tobela, Dingaan

Dingaan Tobela was born on September 24, 1966 in the settlement of Soweto , a suburb of Johannesburg , South Africa .

He made his debut in boxing at a professional level in June 1986. For a long time he did not know defeats, he won the title of champion of the province of Transvaal in the second featherweight category, later he became the champion of South Africa among professionals.

Having a record of 22 victories without a single defeat, in 1990 he was awarded the right to challenge the world lightweight champion title according to the World Boxing Organization (WBO), which at that time belonged to Mexican Mauricio Aceves (26-8-1). The confrontation between them lasted all the allotted 12 rounds, as a result, the judges gave a separate decision to Tobela.

He won the title of Tobel twice, having won on points against such boxers as Mario Martinez (48-7-2) and Antonio Rivera (24-7-1).

In 1993, he met twice with an American, Tony Lopez (41-3-1), holder of the world lightweight champion title by the World Boxing Association (WBA). First, he lost to him by unanimous decision, then he won with the same result, taking the championship belt for himself. Twice entered the ring against the undefeated representative of Kyrgyzstan Orzubek Nazarov (17-0) - both times he was defeated on points.

In subsequent years, Tobela gained a lot of weight, moving into the welterweight category. In October 1998, he claimed the vacant international boxing championship title by the World Boxing Council (WBC), but the match with Argentinean Carlos Baldomir (24-8-3) ended in a draw.

In 1999, he could become the owner of the vacant world title according to the International Boxing Organization (IBO), but could not meet the welterweight limit. Later, in the middle weight category, he boxed for the World Boxing Federation (WBF) world title, losing the decision of the majority of judges to the British Cornelius Carr (32-3).

Since 2000, he played in the middle middleweight, in particular, became the champion of South Africa and gained the WBC world title by knocking out Briton Glenn Katley (26-3). Nevertheless, he did not remain a champion for long - already during the first defense he lost by a separate decision to Canadian Dave Hilton (39-2-2) ^[1] .

In November 2001, he tried to regain the WBC champion title, which had by then passed to another Canadian boxer, Eric Lucas (33-4-3), but was defeated by technical knockout in the eighth round.

In November 2002, he boxed with the undefeated Dane Mikkel Kessler (29-0) in the fight for the IBA World Champion title - he lost to his rival by unanimous refereeing.

Subsequently, he entered the ring against such famous boxers as Otis Grant (31-2-1) and Lucian Bute (8-0), but lost to both. He completed his sports career after another defeat in 2006. In total, he spent 56 fights in the pro ring, of which 40 won (including 26 ahead of schedule), 14 lost, while in two cases a draw was recorded.

In 2009, the book Rose of Soweto: The Dingaan Thobela Story ^[2] dedicated to him was published.

• Dingaan Tobela - professional boxing statistics for BoxRec