1958 — Grant Webster leads South Africa’s boxers to a haul of four golds at the Empire Games in Cardiff, beating Englishman Stuart Pearson, the British champion, on points for the light-middleweight crown. Henry Loubscher, an Olympic bronze medallist, won the light-welterweight gold and Jopie Greyling, a former polio victim, downed Thomas Kawere of Uganda in the welterweight decider, giving South Africa gold in three straight weight divisions. Heavyweight Daan Bekker won the country’s fourth gold. Phillipus du Plessis had to settle for the middleweight silver in the middleweight class. With two bronze medals South African boxers won seven of the country’s 31 medals, Webster, a nine-time national champion who competed at the 1952 and 1956 Olympics, never turned professional. He was considered the outstanding amateur of the era and used to spar with paid fighters. Webster agreed to act as chief sparring partner for visiting American professional Jimmy Martinez in June 1957. But when he saw that fans were being charged money by the owner of Kuppy’s gym in Eloff Street, he pulled out. Neither Webster nor Martinez were going to get a cut. The archaic amateur rules forbade fighters from participating in sparring bouts where admission fees were charged, though they were allowed to fight in amateur tournaments with admission fees. Charging fans money to watch professionals spar was common practice in the day...