Zolani Tete, a two-weight world champion from South Africa, was shot dead on Friday evening as he arrived at his home in Mdantsane, in Eastern Cape province. He was 38, Al Jazeera reports.
A 27-year-old woman who was in the vehicle with him survived and was taken to hospital.
Police said in a statement on Monday that four suspects aged between 22 and 28 had been arrested over the weekend, and that one of them has been charged with murder.
What he did in the ring
Tete won the IBF junior bantamweight title in 2014 and the WBO bantamweight title in 2017. In the same year he produced what is recorded as the fastest knockout in a world championship bout, stopping his opponent in 11 seconds.
Eleven seconds is roughly the time it takes to walk to the centre of the ring. In a sport where a championship fight is scheduled for twelve rounds, it is the kind of result that is remembered as a curiosity as much as an achievement, and it made him internationally known.
He came from Mdantsane, a township outside East London that has produced a striking number of South African world champions, and he was killed there.
The comeback he did not get to make
UK Anti-Doping banned Tete for four years in 2023. The ban expired on July 29 this year, and he was preparing to return to professional boxing.
We are stating that plainly because both facts belong in an accurate account of his life: a serious sanction, served in full, and a career he was in the middle of resuming when he was killed. The source does not give the substance behind the ban, and we have not supplied one.
Gayton McKenzie, South Africa's sports minister, said: "South Africa has lost one of the finest fighters it has ever produced," noting that "He was training for a return to the ring."
What we could not establish
We could not establish a motive, whether the attack was targeted, the condition of the woman who survived, the identities of those arrested, or when they are due in court. We verified this account from a single publication.
