![\"\"](\"https:\/\/mobserver.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/92\/2020\/02\/SPIDER-KELLY-1-Copy-520x400.jpg\")
<\/p>\nwww.mobserver.co.za\u00a0<\/b>and one of his old army friends, Lappies Labuschagne, surprised Spider Kelly (George Mackenzie) with a cake.<\/p>\n
With his arms covered in tattoos, George Duncan James MacKenzie was one of the most recognisable South African sportsmen during the 1960s and \u201870s.
\nHe retired with a record of 27 wins, including 19 knockouts, 14 losses and two draws.<\/p>\n
Born on February 11 in 1941, he grew into a 1.83m welterweight and was trained by his late father-in-law Cookie Mendoza.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Kelly began boxing when he was nine years old and turned professional on March 27, 1961, when he changed his name to Spider Kelly.<\/p>\n
On September 8 1969, he stopped Kosie Wiese before winning the SA welterweight title by stopping Dave Rose in the sixth round.<\/p>\n
In 1971, Kelly retained the welterweight title against Gert Steyn, and stopped Gielie Buitendag, but lost his title in a return match with Steyn in October.<\/p>\n
Steyn knocked him out in the eighth round in April 1974. In his last fight, on June 28 that year, Kelly lost on points in a six-rounder against Ronnie du Preez in Welkom and then retired.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
One of the town\u2019s boxing legends celebrated his 79th birthday on Tuesday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8164,"featured_media":109693,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"hasGravity":false,"cxt_article_byline":"Tobie van den Bergh","cxt_disable_google_ads":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,2],"tags":[23303,10010,12898,23306,23302,23304,23307,23305,10333],"class_list":["post-109691","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news-headlines","tag-george-duncan-james-mackenzie","tag-local-news","tag-middelburg-news","tag-south-african-boxing-legends","tag-spider-kelly","tag-spider-kelly-boxer","tag-spider-kelly-celebrates-his-79th-birthday","tag-spider-kelly-south-african-boxing-title-holder","tag-trusted-news"],"category_labels":{"Category":"News","SubCategory":"Local news"},"tag_labels":["george duncan james mackenzie","local news","middelburg news","south african boxing legends","spider kelly","spider kelly boxer","spider kelly celebrates his 79th birthday","spider kelly south african boxing title holder","trusted news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109691","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8164"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=109691"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109691\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/109693"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=109691"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=109691"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=109691"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}