Former renowned boxing trainer and promoter Bala Subramani was a man of many talents. From working as a chef in the tourism industry, Bala had always tried his very best to succeed in whatever area he ventured in.
At 39 years old, Bala said he was satisfied with his achievements and was reaping its rewards after an interview reported in The Fiji Times on March 12, 1981.
In 1974, Bala managed to open his own hotel which was known as the Sugar City Resort. Running a hotel business was not hard for Bala because he was equipped with the knowledge while working as a catering manager at the Tanoa Hotel.
Bala’s first step into the tourism and hotel business was being employed as a chef in several hotels in the western part of Viti Levu, during his early twenties.
However, after a few years in the industry, he had wanted to try something new, something totally different from the field he was in.
Bala took three solid years of applying for a promoter’s licence with the Fiji Professional Wrestling and Boxing Association before he was finally granted one after the Fiji Boxing Council was formed in 1980.
He admitted that even though many of his promotions put him in the red, he had never given up on himself.
“I have lost a lot of money in my promotions, but I will keep trying and have no intention of giving up,” he said.
Bala himself was a boxer, but only had 11 professional fights from 1959 to 1968. He also tried soccer, but had to give it up when he suffered a serious knee injury. The same injury had also cut short his boxing career.
Still interested in the sport, he turned to becoming a boxing trainer, forming a club at Belup Rd near Nadi in 1972. It was from this club that he brought former Fiji middleweight champion Jone Mataitini into the boxing spotlight.
Apart from this, Bala had also formed another club at Malolo, Nadi.
While working on his boxing club, he also changed places where he worked as a hotel chef, moving from the Tanoa Hotel to work as a chef at the Beachcomber Resort for two years before joining the Regent Hotel on Denarau.
In the same year, Bala also opened up a boxing club behind his hotel that consisted of 40 members.
Some of his fighters were FBC featherweight champion Luke Sauqaqa, Akuila Naidu, Jeke Naqelevuki, and several other top boxers of Lautoka. On his first four promotions, Bala claimed that he had lost over $9000.
Baba was also among others who had discovered Fiji’s “Golden Boy” Sakaraia Ve, while he was still in his early stages of boxing. After many failed promotions had him digging deeper into his pockets, things started to become brighter when Ve came into the picture, slowly taking the boxing arena by storm.
The common phrase “business is business” had always been true for Bala as he would continuously gain and lose money in conducting promotions. A good example of this was when Ve fought Eric Kings at Labasa and Bala lost $1300, for that single fight.
It was not long before he staged the Wally Carr/Fossie Schmidt bout in Suva and lost $8000. After this, he had begun planning four more promotions, including the third welterweight championship bout between Sakaraia Ve and Clyde Gray at Lautoka in July.
Despite all of the losses and challenges he faced in conducting promotions, he still believed there was a fortune in boxing.
