Lingering questions about the death of Mexican boxer Martin Sanchez following a July 1 bout in Las Vegas have prompted the World Boxing Council to launch an investigation, the governing body’s president said on Tuesday.
”In the case of ‘Fireman’ Sanchez, there are things that should be investigated in greater depth,” WBC President Jose Sulaiman said during an informal news conference in his office. He also announced an effort to improve boxing safety in Indonesia, where he said several boxers have died in the past year.
Sulaiman said a team of physicians from California, Nevada, Mexico and the Philippines would start looking into the Sanchez case immediately.
Sanchez, a 26-year-old Mexico City firefighter, died in a Las Vegas hospital a day after he was knocked out in the ninth round of a super lightweight bout against Rustam Nugaev of Russia.
Despite bleeding from the nose and mouth, he did not appear seriously injured as he left the ring. He collapsed in the dressing room and was taken to the hospital where he died.
While not providing specifics, Sulaiman said a WBC representative sent to monitor other fights that night ”was witness to several internal events, above all in the dressing room, where there were problems … that were not rapidly resolved.”
”That’s all I know,” he added. ”I don’t want to speak on something that is going to be investigated but we know that something happened.”
He said the WBC probe ”is not a criminal investigation” but was meant to find ways to improve safety in future fights.
However he described a broad probe that would cover Sanchez’s private and professional life, reports from friends, an examination of his training, of the events surrounding the fight itself and scrutiny of the official paperwork before the bout.
Mexico City boxing officials said Sanchez had failed to receive a medical clearance from his home commission before the US bout, though his manager has told Mexican news media that the boxer underwent medical checks elsewhere.
Sulaiman also said the probe would look at ”what weight the fight was contracted for and if that was his weight. And if not, why it was contracted.”
The Las Vegas Review-Journal reported that Sanchez missed the 63.5kg weight limit by nearly a kilo in his first try at the June 30 weigh-in.
Yet the limit itself was already a jump of three weight classes from featherweight, where Sanchez had fought as recently as a year earlier.
Sulaiman also said that WBC referees and medical experts were taking part in a conference with Indonesian government officials to strengthen boxing safety in that country, where he said five boxers had died over the past year.
He said improvements would likely include stricter medical supervision of fighters and bouts, training so that referees would recognise potential neurological damage in fighters and a system to let a ringside doctor halt fight. – Sapa-AP