The Toweel Family 5

In South Africa,   the name Toweel was at one time tantamount to saying boxing. The Toweel family made an extraordinary impact and contribution to the sport in 20th century South Africa.

The most famous member of the Toweel family was Vic (Victor Anthony, born in Benoni in the Transvaal (Gauteng) in 1929. He was the second eldest of six brothers.  His parents were of Lebanese origin and his father, Mike Toweel, popularly known as Pappa Mike taught boxing to his sons, Jimmy, Victor, Fraser, Willie and Allan Toweel in an old tin shed in the backyard of a house in Benoni.

The shed had very little room but managed to house a makeshift boxing ring and it was there that the legend began, starting with many amateur titles and both Vic and Willie representing South Africa in the Olympic games and culminating in a world title, a draw in a world championship fight, seven South African titles and two British Empire Titles.

One of the Toweel brothers Maurice had contracted Polio when he was young which prevented him from competing in boxing but, due to his father’s training, enabled him to become a leading promoter of World Championship Fights. The other brothers Jimmy, Fraser and Allan were all excellent boxers as well.

Aside from training his sons, Pappa Toweel had become established as one of the country’s top boxing trainers, handling Alf Gallagher the Australian heavyweight and Giel de Roode from Holland.

In 1948 Pappa Mike was the trainer for 4 out of the 8 fighters who were South African representatives at the Olympics in London with a gold medal and the cup for the best boxer going to George Hunter. A bronze medal went to Johnny Arthur.

Vic became the first South African to win a world title, becoming world Bantamweight champion by winning against the reigning champion Manuel Ortiz in 1950. Vic defended his championship successfully 3 times  the first against Danny O’Sullivan when he won a mention in the Guinness Book of Records for the most knock downs in a world title fight (14 times)  then against Louis Romero and Peter Keenan, his fourth attempt at defending his title was against the Australian Jimmy Carruthers, which he lost.

In 1953 Carruthers gave Vic Toweel a return match but Vic started to fade after the 6th round and in the tenth round he was counted out.

In August 2008 Vic Toweel died at age 80 in Sydney Australia where he had been living for the past 20 years.

Willie had also become a very promising contender for a world championship, but all this fell apart for Willie when in a fight to defend his South African featherweight title against the young Hubert Esakow in 1956, tragedy struck. After a knockout in the 11th round, Esakow suffered fatal injuries to the brain and died a couple of days later.

It appears that even though Willie continued fighting for a while he never really achieved his potential and the spectre of Esakow remained in his mind.