Quite a lot ?? Is there any sport out there where so many of its athletes ended up killed ??? I don't think so. https://boxrec.com/wiki/index.php/Category:Murdered_Boxers and feel free to tell the stories behind it.. or the theories about it; Stanley Ketchel, at least is how the story goes, was killed because he was fooling around someone else´s wife.
Jesse James Hughes was likely murdered. The always-exciting 1990s welterweight from Mobile, Alabama, was found face-down in a swampy area near his home. Autopsy showed blunt-force trauma to the head but not fatal — I assume maybe hit over the head with something and fell face-down in the water and drowned (he had water in his lungs). James apparently had the habit of setting up drug deals then beating up the dealer and taking his money and his stash (he had cocaine in his system but, again, not an amount that would be fatal). That sort of thing tends to result in retaliation, which is probably what happened here.
One of our locals, Jeff Simms, Karma finally caught him when the violence he was known for , like robbery, shootings, a homicide , felony battery, drug dealing, etc. It all came to an end for him when someone caught him slipping in Liberty City in Dade county Fl. He died as he lived, violently..... Vernon Forrest also was murdered. But it wasn't because of anything he actually did other than being a successful person, he was robbed and killed.
I had no idea Wendell Bailey was murdered. He was a journeyman heavyweight and I think a Larry Holmes sparring partner. I saw what turned out to be his last fight, a decision loss to George Chaplin for iirc the Maryland heavyweight championship. This was in late 1979 right after my area got ESPN (which was in its formative stages) added to cable. I was excited because there was now an all-sports channel and even though they were just televising whatever they could get (like UConn baseball, haha), it meant more boxing to watch.
Seems more plausible to me that Alexis Arguello's death was a political assassination rather than self-inflicted. How many suicide victims shoot themselves through the heart? Nicaraguan politics was notorious for its corruption and Alexis was about to jump ship from the Sandanista party. I would guess that any police investigation into his death would likely have been compromised.
One of the Molitor brothers went away for murder. There woulda been 2 world champions in that family had he kept his nose clean. Apparently younger brother and champion (I keep mixing them up) parlayed that all of his opponents in the pros were no match for the sparring sessions with his brother while they were growing up. French Canadian brothers with boricua blood. Also Devon Alexander and Vaughan Alexander. One was tough, the other incarcerated. Older bro said he had to do things he's not proud of to survive. Came out of prison a few weight classes higher thanks to weight lifting. Wasn't teddy atlas notorious for wanting to kill Donny Lalonde. You know I say these things like matter of fact but in essence they are very sad.