Strange deaths....Fighters who died while active

Salvador Sanchez, 23, auto accident training for his rematch against Jaun Laporte.

 

Pancho Villa - had an infected tooth removed and then went 10 rounds with Jimmy McLarnin. Believe he had a couple more bad teeth removed afterwards, but he died like 10 days after the McLarnin fight of blood poisoning.

Luther McCarty - technically he died during the 1st round of the Arthur Pelkey fight, but it was widely attributed to a neck injury sustained earlier in the day when he was thrown by a horse.

Harry Greb and Tiger Flowers - both died of complications of differing eye operations

 

Was he driving? Because initially I thought he was but I read somewhere lately he wasn't.

 

Single-car accident. He was the driver:

https://www.nytimes.com/1984/06/17/sports/cruelest-punches-follow-fighter-s-final-ring-loss.html

 

Just terrible. Panama Lewis - what a POS he is.

 

Jose Urtain I believe committed suicide by jumping out of a window of a building.

 

My fault that was 15 years after his last fight, he was only 49 when he died though.

 

Very sad what happened to Davey Moore. I have pushed cars with my friend who was a mechanic and we had to move the cars on inclines and I can imagine losing footing and if you don't get it back fast the car can go over you. Luckily it never happened but it is dangerous. I remember sometimes the car was hard to get rolling and you had to sort push hard and the all of a sudden it starts to roll out of control and you have to run fast to get behind the wheel just to steer it or control it.

 

Not so much a mystery, or that he was active at the time, but former heavy champ Trevor Berbick met an untimely end at the hands of his own nephew courtesy of an iron bar to the side of his head from behind. It was, I believe a long running feud over land ownership, and Berbick was ambushed in a cemetery after arranging to meet his killer. If memory serves me right two individuals got sent down for the crime. Feel free to correct me if I am wrong.

 

They were in the time before antibiotics.

 

I liked the French Crusierweight… I heard he bled to death from a cut to his hand/arm from shattered glass... would have loved to see him fight Tiozzo…………...RIP Champ

 

Young Stribling - died in the hospital after being in a severe motorcycle accident. His wife came to visit him as she was down the hall convalescing in the same hospital after having their third child.

 

I was discussing this earlier today, how routine ailments and injuries were often fatal in pre-antibiotics days.

Tell me more about the "good old days", folks.

 

Yes, very sad because it's so relatable. Just about every guy who has owned a car has likely tried to stop a rolling car at some point. You just figure if it's moving slow you'll be able to bring it to a stop by pushing against it. I've never done it again after learning how he died.

 

Yes, I was going to mention him. He was riding a motorcycle and he got sideswiped and the accident nearly severed his foot. He died from blood loss.

A lot of these gruesome stories (like Moore and Stribling) are in the book Boxing Babylon by Nigel Collins.