South African Boxing Hall of Fame
When Chris Lessing died on June 1, 1976 at the age of 43 at Garden City Clinic in Johannesburg he left behind a superb collection of boxing books, autographed photos of famous boxers, 16mm films and museum memorabilia including statuettes, trophies and signed gloves.
Subsequently his collection was donated to the South Africa Boxing Board of Control who established a Chris Lessing Boxing Hall of Fame which was housed at their offices in the Fattis and Monis Building in Johannesburg. The museum was under the curatorship of long time sports writer Bill Bosch.
On October 12, 1979 at the official opening of the museum and the first ever South African Boxing Hall of Fame ten boxers were inducted into the Hall and it was reported that elections to the Hall of Fame would be held on an annual basis.
The Boxing Hall of Fame was divided into three categories. The Pioneer Group for boxers who were active before the first World War, the Oldtimers Group for boxers who fought between the two World Wars, and the Modern Group for boxers who were active after the second World War.
The first ten ring greats to be honoured were:
Pioneer Group – James Robertson Couper and Arthur Douglas.
Oldtimers Group – Don McCorkindale, Ben Foord, Willie Smith and Laurie Stevens.
Modern Group – Vic Toweel, Arnold Taylor, Jake Tuli and Pierre Fourie.
Subsequently the museum was down sized when the Boxing Control Board moved offices to Nasrec and Midrand.
It is believed that over the years a lot of the memorabilia has disappeared but there are still were still a number of items held by Boxing South Africa at their offices in Pretoria.
However, over the years many items have gone missing and there is a story which has never been substantiated that at one time a leading boxer visited museum and remarked that the gloves which were marked as being those of the Welshman Jimmy Wilde, considered by many to be the greatest world flyweight champion all-time were not a pair of gloves as they were both left hand gloves.
What has happened the items is unknown.
Rather sadly in recent years there has been very little interest in establishing a South African Boxing Hall of Fame.
Some time ago a South African Boxing Hall of Fame was established at the Sun City Resort in the Pilansberg in the Northern Province.
However this is was not a Hall of Fame in the true sense as there are not annual elections in the various groups. Brian Mitchell South Africa’s most successful boxer of all-time was the host and conducted interviews with well-known South African fighters, which went down well with everyone. It made up for the time being.
The Undisputed 