Holloway and Barney in first super fight in SA

Jim Holloway, who was born of Irish-English parents in Pretoria, was involved in what was reported as the first super fight between two South African-born boxers when he met Barney Malone on 3 July 1893 at a place on a farm on the old road to Kimberley, about 13 kilometres from the centre of Johannesburg.

The fight was billed for the vacant South African lightweight title and it would be the last time that the London Prize Ring rules were to apply in a major fight in South Africa.

On a bitterly cold morning, the fight was scheduled to begin at 7am and a few hundred brave spectators had paid a gold sovereign each to watch the fight.

After five-and-a-half hours of holding and mauling in a poor fight, and one round even lasting 45 minutes, with both fighters not taking any chances, the referee, Major Robertson, declared the contest a draw after 73 rounds.

Rather sadly, both the fighters and about 40 of those who attended the fight, including Jamie Couper who trained Holloway, were prosecuted for having been involved in a prize fight, charged, found guilty and fined £20 each.

Holloway, who was born James Martin Holloway on 5 August 1864 in Pretoria, had his first reported fight on 5 September 1889 against Manny Garcial, which ended in a draw when the fight was stopped due to bad light.

As was the custom in prize-fighting, the fight would be continued on the next day. However, it was reported that Garcial refused to continue the fight the next morning.

Holloway beat Chappie McNeil in a fight advertised as the lightweight championship of Pretoria and in his next fight he knocked out Lew Furze in the 32nd round.

On 9 January 1893 at the Sunderland Bar in Pretoria, in a return match with McNeil, he won on a second-round knockout. It was reported that McNeil was bare-knuckle, while Holloway wore eight ounce gloves.

After winning against Dick Glanville and beating McNeil for the third time, he had the bare-knuckle fight with Malone and then lost the South African lightweight title to New Zealander Jim Murphy who stopped him in the 17th round. In those days foreign fighters claimed the South African title and at times returned to their home country with the title being left vacant.

He won 12 of his next 15 fights, which included victories over Barney Malone, Jack Lalor, and Jack Valentine for the South African middleweight title, all top class fighters.

Holloway then travelled to London in 1899 and impressed the members of the National Sporting Club, winning against Jewey Cook, whose real name was Abe Cohen and Jim Curran. The match against Cook was set for 14 stone (63.50kgs) and a £50 purse.

He was scheduled to have more fights in England but the threatening war forced him to return to the Transvaal.

Holloway had another five fights in 1899, winning three, losing one and fighting to a draw before joining a commando of burghers from Pretoria in the Anglo-Boer War.

During the first year of the war Holloway and an Australian fighter, Arty Tully, who fought on the side of the Boers, were captured and sent to a prisoner-of-war camp at Diyatalawa in Ceylon.

The camp was one of five camps to accommodate Afrikaner prisoners from the Boer War and the first prisoners landed on 8 August 1900.

On Saturday 10 November 1900, in what was the first ever South African title fight to be held in an Eastern country, Tully won on a third-round disqualification over Holloway, and in a return bout on Saturday 19 July 1902 in the Recreation Hall of the camp they fought to a ten-round draw.

After his return from Ceylon, Holloway fought mostly at middleweight, winning against Lew Jones. Then on 16 May 1903, at the Wanderers Hall in Johannesburg, in a fight billed as being for the South African middleweight title, he knocked out Bill Heffernan in the fourth round.

A little more than nine weeks later he lost the title to Jewey Cook and in the next two years he had 13 fights, winning only four. Among his losses were two 20-round points decisions against Jack Lalor.

Holloway’s long-awaited third match with Barney Malone took place at the Theatre Royal in Durban on 14 October 1905 with the vacant South African lightweight title at stake.

The younger Malone was the stronger of the two and won on a 16th-round knockout.

Holloway had two more fights, winning on points against Harry Cooper and on 8 March 1907 at the Olympia Skating Rink in Kimberley.

In his last reported fight he beat Harry Long Douglas, whose real name was Douglas Vos, in a fight billed as for the vacant South African lightweight title, to finish with a record of 30 wins, with 25 inside the distance, 14 losses and seven draws.

There is no doubt that he had more fights as record keeping was not all that accurate at the time.

After retiring from boxing he opened a gym in Pretoria, which he subsequently closed and then took a job on one of the gold mines in Johannesburg.

Underground conditions were poor at the time and provided very little ventilation and as a result he contracted phthisis.

Holloway died on 16 April 1916 at the age of 51 in Malvern, Johannesburg, and was buried at the nearby Primrose Cemetrey.