Sport: Death in the Ring

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U.S. boxing authorities have a set routine for soothing public anger whenever a fighter dies from a ring beating. The ritual calls for regrets, investigations, hearings, expert testimony and hopeful promises. Last week the New York State Athletic Commission had to begin the rites of atonement for the first time in 1951; Welterweight George Flores, 20, knocked out in Madison Square Garden,* died of a brain injury. Said the commission:

"We all express our deep sorrow and regret over the unfortunate accident which resulted in boxing losing one of our most promising aspirants."

But as reporters delved into the matter, it became embarrassingly plain that boxing had lost nothing of the sort. "Promising" George Flores, in 16 months of professional fighting, had lost seven of 20 bouts, four of them by knockouts, horizontal or technical. Twice in the month before the fatal match, Flores had been beaten so badly that the referee stopped the bout.

The people who really lost when George Flores went down were his 19-year-old wife and three-week-old son. For their sake he had eagerly solicited the Garden match; the purse, $1,500, was the biggest of his brief career. The Garden doctors examined him and pronounced him fighting fit. And for his Garden debut, the matchmakers thoughtfully paired up George Flores with an old acquaintance, personable Roger Donoghue, the boy who had given him his next-to-last beating only two weeks before.