{"id":15126,"date":"2012-10-01T17:23:33","date_gmt":"2012-10-01T15:23:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/10\/boxing-funeral-held-for-slain-s-african-champion-sanders\/"},"modified":"2012-10-01T17:23:33","modified_gmt":"2012-10-01T15:23:33","slug":"boxing-funeral-held-for-slain-s-african-champion-sanders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/boxing-funeral-held-for-slain-s-african-champion-sanders\/","title":{"rendered":"Boxing-Funeral held for slain S.African champion Sanders"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"articleLocation\">JOHANNESBURG<\/span> Oct 1 (Reuters) &#8211; Former world heavyweight boxing champion Corrie Sanders, shot dead in a robbery, was laid to rest at a funeral in South Africa on Monday with friends saying he was a gentle man who gave his life to save others.<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Sanders, 46, was shot in the arm and the stomach when robbers raided a restaurant near Brits, in North West Province, where he and other family members were attending a birthday party for his nephew nine days ago.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Relatives said Sanders used his body to shield his daughter when the robbers started shooting.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;He was a gentle giant &#8211; a guy who was dangerous in the ring but harmless outside of it,&#8221; boxing promoter Nick Durandt told reporters after the funeral held at a church in Pretoria and attended by hundreds of mourners.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Police last week arrested three suspects &#8211; all Zimbabwean citizens &#8211; who appeared before a court in Brits, 80 km northwest of Johannesburg, on Monday to face charges of murder and armed robbery, SAPA news agency said.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Southpaw Sanders, nicknamed &#8220;The Sniper&#8221; because of his fierce and quick left, won the World Boxing Organisation (WBO) heavyweight title in 2003 with a surprise knockout of Ukraine&#8217;s Vladimir Klitschko. He lost only four of his 46 professional fights.    (Reporting by Jon Herskovitz; Editing by Clare Fallon)<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"copyright\">\n<p>         \t\t\u00a9 Thomson Reuters 2012 All rights reserved<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>JOHANNESBURG Oct 1 (Reuters) &#8211; Former world heavyweight boxing champion Corrie Sanders, shot dead in a robbery, was laid to rest at a funeral in South Africa on Monday with friends saying he was a gentle man who gave his life to save others. Sanders, 46, was shot in the arm and the stomach when [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[830,2370,183],"class_list":{"0":"post-15126","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-news","8":"tag-reuters","9":"tag-south-africa-2","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15126","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15126"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15126\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15126"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15126"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15126"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}