Lionel Hunter: A fighter who never lost his tough edge 1962-2020
He is remembered for a fight in a Rockey Street alley
● Former boxer Lionel Hunter, who died this week at 58 after a battle with cancer, had his most famous fight in an alley off Yeoville’s Rockey Street in the early 1990s.
Hunter, working as a bouncer at some establishments on the strip, took on Gary Beuthin, an ill-tempered bodybuilding gangster notorious for causing fights at Johannesburg’s popular nightlife spots.
Beuthin was challenging all comers to fight for R1,000 outside Talking Heads, where Hunter was working. Hunter responded: “I don’t have R1,000, but I’ll fight you for nothing.” Beuthin accepted.
Hunter, fighting one-handed because he’d broken his left, dished out a hiding. Not long after that Beuthin became the subject of a widely publicised manhunt after attacking and kidnapping his exgirlfriend, Jill Reeves.
Hunter grew up carefree yet tough in Kibler Park, south of Johannesburg, catching snakes and selling the harmless ones at school.
When he got bitten on a finger by a burrowing, 13-year-old Hunter tried sucking out the poison cowboy style, although he ended up in hospital for a week and permanently lost feeling in the finger.
He always enjoyed fighting, and taking up boxing was a natural evolution. He turned professional under Andries Steyn senior, one of the country’s top trainers.
In November 1985 he fought
Sakkie Horn for the Transvaal lightheavyweight title, but lost on a split decision he believed he should have won. Horn went on to win the SA title in his next outing and Hunter hung up his gloves after four more fights.
He worked at a printing company until he took up bouncing fulltime, writing his resignation on the back of a warning letter he’d received for talking.
Hunter left bouncing and went on to own a successful business selling second-hand BMW spare parts.
He became a successful trainer himself, guiding Walter Dlamini to the SA middleweight crown.
Hunter found religion and became a pastor in his spare time, working with prisoners and recovering drug addicts.
Also a devoted family man, he never lost that tough edge, however. More than a year ago he fell off a truck and, struggling with a little stiffness in the neck, continued training for fitness and even went overseas.
He later found out he had broken his neck in the fall and underwent surgery. That was when the doctor discovered three tumours on his vertebrae, but the cancer had already spread.
Hunter is survived by wife Shereen and four children.