Newly crowned SA heavyweight champion Juan Roux this week spoke about how boxing helped him beat a weight problem and overcome depression.
From a teen weighing 185kg, lacking motivation and swallowing a cocktail of medications including antidepressants, 25-year-old Roux is now aiming at fitting world belts around his waist while studying for a B Com to fulfil his dream of becoming a chartered accountant.
His split decision victory over Tian Fick last weekend, in just his sixth professional fight, was also one of the most meteoric rises in the history of the division locally.
Since boxing was legalised in SA nearly 100 years ago only one fighter has lifted the national heavyweight title faster — two-times Olympic medallist Daan Bekker, in his fifth paid bout in 1962.
Robey Leibbrandt, one of SA’s most famous traitors and a fourth-placed finisher at the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin where he fell for Nazi doctrine, also won it in his sixth outing in 1937.
Unlike them Roux had only four amateur fights. “I got thrown into the deep end pretty quickly in terms of sparring and difficulty so I was a bit better than my record said,” Cape Town-based Roux told the Sunday Times in a telephonic interview.
“I’ve been through the wringer. Even in my amateur days I was sparring with Ruann Visser [the former SA champion] and [unbeaten Ukrainian] Vlad Sirenko ... I learned a lot in terms of defence, surviving in the ring, fitness, composing yourself and fighting tired.”
Two weeks ago Roux was on holiday, having stopped Wilhelm Nebe in the first round on December 4, but after challenger Luke Sutherland pulled out five days before, the short-notice offer came.
“I was eating cake on Sunday,” he said with a laugh. Six days later he was eating leather à la Fick. “It took me a round or two to get my eye in, he jabbed me properly and he hurt me a bit. I’ve had enough tough experiences in my life to know I can persevere,” said Roux, who went to Brackenfell High, the alma mater of Springbok winger Cheslin Kolbe.
“I never properly did any sport, I played a bit of rugby in high school but I never really took to it.
“I was about 185kg of pure blubber. I was depressed, I was on antidepressants and Ritalin. I lacked motivation. I was kind of lost.”
After school Roux, who stands 1.93m tall, got a job as a bartender, but on his second day he dislocated his knee. “I couldn’t stand for eight hours a day. It was scary to me. I decided I really needed to make a change, but I didn’t know what.”
One of the bar owners, Savva Savvas, now his manager, steered him to boxing. He shed the weight, quit the pills and even when he was sidelined for four months after a motorbike crash, he gritted it out.
He still remembers his first amateur fight. “I was so stressed ... I just ran at him. I hit him in the eye and his contact lens came out and 30 seconds into the round he said ‘I can’t see’ and gave up.”
The anxiety before fights hasn’t eased. “My coach [Mike Mouneimne] said he’s never seen a man stress so much. He says every single fight I stress like it’s my last day on Earth.
“I’m never stressed about the other guy, I just have performance anxiety,” added Roux, who feels loyalty towards those who helped him, including promoter Jackie Brice.
“I feel like boxing is my second chance at life and all the people who’ve done so much for me and I want to pay them back by giving my absolute best.”
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.