Ground Breaking Boxers

Hogan Bassey

Hogan ‘Kid’ Bassey. Born in Creek Town, Calabar, Nigeria on 3rd June 1932, Okon Bassey Asuquo (Hogan ‘Kid’ Bassey) MBE was one of five children. As a teenager, in Nigeria, he turned professional, and won many bouts, although these were never recorded. By 1949, he had won and lost the Nigerian fly weight title, and by 1951 he was both Nigerian and West African champion at bantam weight. At the end of 1951, he arrived in Liverpool, a first and second home to a multitude of communities from every corner of the Commonwealth. A place where he would lay his roots and begin a mutual love affair with the South End of Liverpool. In January 1952, in his British debut bout he defeated Ray Hilliyard with a fourth-round stoppage. A further 19 bouts ensued in that calendar year. In November 1955 Bassey won the British Empire featherweight title in Belfast by knocking out the Irishman Billy “Spider” Kelly with a perfectly delivered right hook in the eighth round. This was the platform for a hugely successful boxing career which lay ahead. He fought and beat Cherif Hamia, a French-Algerian for the World Featherweight Championship, in Paris, in 1957. He would go onto successfully retain his title over the next two years before finally being defeated in 1959 and retiring from boxing. In 1963, the Nigerian government appointed him as the Director of Physical Education in respect of his boxing achievements which elevated Nigeria as a sporting nation. In 1973 he was awarded the Lion of Africa and was awarded Nigeria’s highest honour of Member of the Order of Nigeria. In 1980, he accompanied the Nigerian Olympic Team to the Moscow Olympics. Accompanied by the ‘Matriarch of Liverpool,’ Bessie Braddock MP, in 1959 he attended Buckingham Palace to receive his MBE from Her Majesty the Queen for his services to boxing.