Minister Gayton McKenzie broke the news that the 38-year-old had been ambushed and killed outside his home in Mdantsane, in the Eastern Cape at 6:30 p.m local time.

Tete was with a 27-year-old female, who was also shot but is in hospital.

"Two armed men in balaclavas got out of a car in Mdantsane and killed one of our greatest world champions at his own front gate, and they are still out there tonight," McKenzie said in a statement.

"I appeal to anyone who saw, knows or heard anything to come forward. Somebody in that community knows who did this."

Tete was born in Mdantsane on March 8, 1988. He took up boxing aged 8 and flourished as an amateur before turning professional as a flyweight at 18 in May 2006.

The tall southpaw won his first 12 outings before picking up a 12-round unanimous decision over Filipino Richard Garcia in an IBF eliminator in February 2010.

That led to a shot at compatriot Moruti Mthalane seven months later. It proved too soon and too big a leap, as he ultimately suffered a fifth-round stoppage defeat.

He fell short over the distance in a pair of IBF junior bantamweight eliminators on away soil against Juan Alberto Rosas (MD12) in Mexico and Roberto Sosa (SD12) in Argentina.

Unperturbed, he returned to Mexico and scored a 10th-round knockout of Juan Carlos Sanchez. The road warrior claimed the vacant IBF title, beating Teiru Kinoshita by wide 12-round unanimous decision in Japan in July 2014.

In his lone defense, he scored a dominant eighth-round stoppage over Paul Buter in England.

After moving to bantamweight, he aligned himself with Queensberry chief Frank Warren, who kept him busy before he claimed the WBO interim title with a 12-round points victory over against Arthur Villanueva.

A trio of defenses, all after being elevated to full champion, followed including a shutout decision against former two-weight world champion Omar Narvaez. Weight issues saw him lose his title against John Riel Casimero (TKO3) in November 2019.

That setback saw him spend two years on the sidelines. Upon his return, he scored a fourth-round finish of Jason Cunningham in what was seen as a warm-up fight en route back to world level contention.

However, the South African later tested positive for the banned substance stanazolol. The fight was retroactively declared a no-contest, he received a four-year ban though always maintained his innocence and told The Ring of his plans to return to competition later this year.