American Carson Jones died while undergoing surgery on his throat or stomach. He was 38 years old and last fought in 2023. Carson was a gutsy, limited fighter who pushed an unbeaten Kell Brook to his absolute limit with Brook's welterweight strap on the line: This content is protected I thought he won that fight though the draw was definitely no robbery. He climbed as high as 175lbs and also fought Antonio Margarito. https://boxrec.com/en/box-pro/275099 You name it, he'd have fought it.
A friend of mine trained him during the late 2000s, during a run where Carson was 8-0-0 with a no contest. When I was in Oklahoma City during 2015, Carson Jones was a heroic figure in the predominantly black neighborhoods, like Alex Saucedo was in the Mexican neighborhoods. I never met him or saw him around the gyms; he fought twice in the UK that year and he was training in Big Bear and, between fights what I was told was that he stayed away from the gym. The area where I lived was predominantly an African American neighborhood and it was possibly the most active area in OKC at that time- it was on the morning news daily. After the gym I liked to walk to the 7-11 on the corner and get a bottle of beer. There were always a bunch of guys hanging around outside and, once they found out that I'm a boxing guy, i would hang around with them and drink a quart of beer and talk boxing. They were very proud of Carson Jones.
Man, it's been a sad time lately here for underrated boxers,last year you lost Vazquez,this year Haugen and Carson left us.
Thanks for sharing. We often don’t see the impact a fighter can have on his neighborhood or town. I came up in a relatively small town (like 100K) and we had a guy who won like five or six state Golden Gloves titles and had a modest pro career, guided from afar by Angelo Dundee (he would go to Miami to train sometimes or over to New Orleans to work with Tony Licata through Dundee’s connection with Willie Pastrano) and he was a bit of a local celebrity. Lots of people looked up to him.
Saw him live vs Brian Rose 1. I know Brian will be very sad to learn of this news. 38, damn, that's tragic. RIP Carson.
