The 38-year-old former two-division world champion was reportedly shot and killed while sitting outside his home in Mdantsane on Friday night.
By Mapaballo Borotho

The boxing fraternity is mourning the death of one of its own, former South African two-time world champion Zolani “Last Born” Tete.
Minister of Sport, Arts and Culture Gayton McKenzie confirmed Tete’s untimely passing on Friday evening, 21 August 2026.
“South Africa has lost one of the finest fighters it has ever produced,” he said.
Tete was reportedly shot and killed on Friday night at his home in Mdantsane. He was 38 at the time of his death.
A 27-year-old woman who was in the car with him was shot multiple times and is receiving medical attention at a health facility.
“I wish her a full recovery, and I ask that her privacy and the family’s be respected,” McKenzie said.
He was sitting at his own gate, waiting for it to open, and that is where they came for him.
I will not speculate about who did this or why. That investigation belongs to the South African Police Service, and the detectives working it tonight need support,” he added.
McKenzie has called on anyone who may have useful information to come forward and assist the police with the investigation.
Tete was a two-division world champion. In 2014, he travelled to Kobe, Japan, to fight in a foreign ring and returned home with the IBF junior-bantamweight title.
He later won the WBO bantamweight title and defended it against some of the best fighters of his generation in Belfast, Yekaterinburg and wherever the fight was put in front of him.
On a November night in 2017, Tete did something no fighter in the history of the sport had done: he ended a world title fight in just 11 seconds.
The record still stands.
It belongs to the boy from NU 12, Mdantsane.
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