After seeing Zolani Tete being pushed in a wheelchair at Cecilia Makiwane Hospital with his left side sagging after what was believed to be a stroke, no one could have imagined that he would go on to become the best boxer currently occupying the pound for pound seat in the land.
But as this interview reveals, that was not Tete’s lone close shave with death.
BM: How does your loss to Moruti Mthalane sit with you?
ZT: I made peace with it because there was nothing I could do about it. My preparations for the fight were shambolic to say the least. I went there without ever engaging in a sparring session.
BM: There are these reports that you are the favourite of the trainers who train you.
ZT: Eish my bro that bothers me also because it portrays me in a bad light. I even talked to my stablemates telling them that if I was the darling of my trainers it was not my own doing. I even sat down with my stablemates and bought them a drink just to show them that I am one of them.
BM: But Zolani you need not concern yourself about that because it happens all over the world. Freddie Roach is known as Manny Pacquiao’s trainer yet he trains many other world champions. In any club there will always be the flagship and you are that at the moment.
ZT: But it still bothers me