Year in Review | Combat sports on the rise as 2025 proves to be a landmark year for SA

Boxing promoter Colin Nathan deemed 2025 a good year for the sport in the country and attributed it to forging relationships among the country's top promoters. In the Mixed Martial Arts world, the sport has also continued to grow in leaps and bounds.

Nathan, a prominent figure in combat sports in the country, particularly boxing, believes that they have continued to push the boundaries in the sport this year.

The promoter praised the new board at Boxing South Africa, appointed late last year after the National Professional Boxing Promoters’ Association took Boxing South Africa to court over the appointment of the preceding board. With Ayanda Zamantungwa Khumalo as chairperson, Nathan has expressed that the sport of boxing in the country seems to be heading in the right direction.

"I think it was a good year. I think we saw the start of something good with Boxing South Africa, a new chairperson coming in," Nathan told Independent Media.

"I think there's going to be some good changes, there's already been good changes, good decision-making. We've got the talent, we've proved that we can compete on international stages. We came within a whisper of winning the Strawweight title, we saw a super fight with Bam Rodriguez and The Truth Cafu. We've had the platforms and the stages, and I think it's only going to get better."

Nathan added that perhaps the biggest highlight of 2025 was the forging of good relationships among the top promoters in the country. He highlighted his growing relationship with Golden Gloves promoter Rodney Berman as an example of two powerhouses joining forces for the betterment of the sport.

"We have proven that people can work together. We saw that Rodney Berman and I started talking again after seven and a half years. We made a fight that was on paper supposed to seal the show, ended up being a total massacre in one round," he said.

"We pushed the egos aside, and we actually ended up talking, and there's a good possibility that we're going to work together next. Can you imagine? That would be very interesting."

While boxing is on the right trajectory, Mixed Martial Arts reached new heights this year. Cape Town and Johannesburg hosted their first-ever Professional Fighters League events, with South Africa's Bantamweight star Nkosi Ndebele headlining the Johannesburg-based event.

The Cape Town-based event saw the sport's greatest athlete, Russia and Dagestan's Khabib Nurmagomedov, come down to the 'Mother City' as the cornerman of one of his fighters. His presence in the country certainly drew eyes to South African MMA.

South Africa's Dricus du Plessis also continued to fly the flag high on the world stage in the Ultimate Fighting Championship, defending his middleweight title successfully against Sean Strickland in Australia earlier this year.

Unfortunately, du Plessis went on to lose the middleweight title to Khamzat Chimaev in August in Chicago. Nonetheless, the 31-year-old shone a bright light not only on his team, CIT in Pretoria, but also for the entire MMA community in South Africa.

The local Extreme Fighting Championship (EFC) continued to provide a platform for the country's rising stars, maintaining its reputation as a key contributor to South Africa’s growing presence in the global MMA arena.