Gerrie Coetzee became the first heavyweight world champion from Africa in 1983, to universal surprise. Two years ago, a serious illness took the popular hero out of this life.
The moment Gerrie Coetzee made history was also a moment of physical pain for him.
Michael Dokes’ right hand hit him in the face with the force of a hammer in the tenth round, so hard that Coetzee’s hand broke. His opponent Dokes staggered briefly, grabbed the ring rope and went down.
Coetzee, a white South African from Boksburg near Johannesburg, sensationally became the first African heavyweight boxing champion on September 23, 1983 – a historic triumph with significant political implications.
For the then 28-year-old, it was the most memorable moment of an eventful and cinematic life, from which Coetzee was torn on January 12, 2023 by a serious illness.
Coetzee’s World Cup victory surprised the boxing world
Coetzee had waited a long time for his big moment. Although he had celebrated great victories before his world championship coup, including beating Muhammad Ali’s conqueror Leon Spinks, he had already missed two world championship opportunities against John Tate and Mike Weaver.
And in the fight fixed by the shady promoter legend Don King against WBA champion Dokes, the odds were also against him. Dokes was considered an up-and-coming top star, Coetzee a better opponent.
But Coetzee’s brutal power put a spoke in Dokes’ wheel.
An anti-racist in the apartheid regime
During the apartheid era, those in power in South Africa liked to adorn themselves with Coetzee, whom they praised as a “white hope” and tried to co-opt in a similar way to how the Nazis once seized on Max Schmeling’s sensational victory over Joe Louis.
Coetzee, however, was not a racist, quite the opposite. He actively fought against racial segregation, repeatedly ignoring the relevant laws. Among other things, he adopted a dark-skinned boxing talent in order to make life easier for him.
“I want to be a champion of the people, I want to be everyone’s champion,” he said in the ring after his world championship triumph over Cokes: “I don’t want to be the champion of a particular group.”
To Coetzee’s chagrin, his world title win was also the beginning of the end of his fairy tale: the hand injury he sustained in the knockout blow played a role in this.
Injury thwarted great fight
Coetzee signed a contract for a title unification fight against IBF world champion Larry Holmes, but the duel was delayed by disputes over money and vanity – and finally fell through when Coetzee’s right in training for a duel with legend Holmes weakened again.
In his comeback fight on December 1, 1984, Coetzee immediately lost his belt to American Greg Page. He was never able to reclaim it.
Coetzee retired after he was knocked out in the first round by Briton Frank Bruno in 1986. Two brief comebacks had no further relevance.
Honored by Nelson Mandela
After his career, Coetzee worked as a motivational speaker. In January 2023, he died of lung cancer after a short illness.
There was only about a week between the diagnosis and Coetzee’s death, as daughter Lana reported to the Independent Online portal: “Everything happened so fast. It was an aggressive form of cancer.”
In his native South Africa, Coetzee was remembered as a folk hero. After the end of apartheid, he received a medal of honor from the then President, national hero and freedom fighter Nelson Mandela.
A few years before Coetzee’s death, a Hollywood film about him was even in the planning stages, with Liam Hemsworth cast in the leading role. However, the project has since been dropped.
