A Sad Day
Posted by BMT on November 24th, 2009
The legendary Blue Horizon in North Philly was the scene of the darker side of boxing on Saturday night when junior featherweight, Francisco Rodriguez, was killed after a 10th round KO against Teon Kennedy. ESPN is reporting today that his family will be donating his organs to assist in saving others’ lives, including a kidney he’s giving to his uncle. There isn’t much to editorialize on this one other than to offer our thoughts and best wishes to the Rodriguez family as well as to Teon Kennedy.
November 24th, 2009 at 12:56 pm
Unfortunately, it’s the nature of the sport. I believe that people should be able to choose to participate in it, despite the danger, since the number of deaths is quite low. However, from what I read of the fight, this one should have been stopped well before the final barrage.
November 24th, 2009 at 2:25 pm
Where have you read that? I have read that the ref could have stopped it in the first, but I heard that the two men pretty much went toe to toe the rest of the way. I haven’t seen anyone say that the ref should have stopped way earlier.
November 24th, 2009 at 3:10 pm
http://www.philly.com/philly/sports/boxing/20091123_Requiem_for_a_super_bantamweight__Francisco_Rodriguez_dies_after_fight_at_Blue_Horizon.html
Both DN stories the day after the fight reported that the fight should have been stopped in the 1st round, but the ref improperly gave Rodriguez an impermissible standing 8 count. If he were essentially out on his feet, the fight should have been stopped. Instead of Kennedy finishing him off then (or the fight being stopped, which should have happened when he was so defenseless that the ref gave him a standing eight), he had a couple of minutes to take smelling salts, and come back out to fight with a concussion. He then took a tremendous battering in the 9th, leading Kennedy to wonder why the fight wasn’t stopped. Finally, in the 10th, he took the fatal battering.
Obviously, no one knew how badly he was hurt, but it’s safe to say that if the ref stopped the fight for good when he stopped it to give Rodrigues a breather (against the rules), he would be alive right now. One can only wonder how much pressure there is on a ref not to stop a fight in the 1st round, especially a headline fight.
November 25th, 2009 at 7:39 pm
I was at the Blue Horizon Friday night sitting in the second row, and when I left I thought I had just seen a great action fight. I left just after the official decision was announced, probably at the same time that Rodriguez was slipping into unconsciousness in his corner, which I was unaware of until I picked up the Daily News in the airport the next morning.
In the airport Monday morning I got an email from my friend I went to the flight with that read simply “Rodriguez died last night.” My first thought was that Friday night I had seen a man beaten to death. My second thought was that there was nothing about the fight that seemed out of place, or that I hadn’t seen in a dozen fights before. Maybe that’s not such a good thing.
I had thought the referee ruled a knockdown in the first round because only the ropes kept him from going down after a shot from Kennedy. I have seen fights stopped for less, and I have seen many more continue. I thought this time that the decision to let them continue was fine, especially because what followed was what seemed to be a great fight. Now I’m not sure what I saw.
November 27th, 2009 at 10:54 am
There is a crucial difference between a knockdown and a standing 8. A standing 8 is given when a guy is out on his feet, i.e. he has a concussion. If a fighter cannot defend himself, the fight should be stopped. You were there, I wasn’t—but all the articles say that he was not knocked into the ropes and was held up by the ropes. If he were given a standing 8, that was a crucial mistake and they should take a look at it because the reason the standing 8 was outlawed was to force fights like this to be stopped. It is a shame either way, of course.