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Award-winning columnist Tom Archdeacon — an old-school storyteller in a brand-new venue — writes about sports, the city, southwest Ohio and anything else that catches his fancy… or yours.Home > Blogs > Through the Arch > Archives > 2009 > July > 26 > Entry
Third Boxing Champ in Month Dies Violently
The third former world boxing champion — in less than a month — has died violently.
Saturday night, Vernon Forrest — a three-time champion, former Olympian, regular church-goer and a guy who dedicated much of his life to the betterment of people with mental challenges, especially children — was murdered during an attempted robbery in Atlanta.
Two weeks earlier, 37-year-old Arturo Gatti, a two-time world champion best known for his bruising trilogy with Irish Mickey Ward — was found murdered in a hotel in Ipojuca, Pernambuco, Brazil.
His widow — who could not explain how she spent more than ten hours in the hotel room without realizing Gatti was dead — has been jailed after the strap of her purse was found stained with blood.
On July 1, 57-year-old Alexis Arguello — a three time champion and the current mayor of Managua, Nicaragua — allegedly committed suicide at his home.
Arguello was my long-time friend.
I barely knew Gatti, but I was familiar with Forrest. I first saw him fight at the the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona. I covered his second welterweight title fight with Sugar Shane Mosley in Indianapolis in July of 2002 and my wife and I were there six months later for his first professional loss, a third-round KO by beer-drinking, cigar-smoking WBA welterweight champ Ricardo Mayorga in Temecula, California.
As an amateur, Forrest had a 225-16 record. He was 41-3 as a pro. In May, he had been forced to give up his junior middleweight title when an injury kept him from making his mandatory title defense.
In the days before his fight in Indianapolis — and immediately after it — I spent some time around Forrest and liked many of the things for which he stood.
Back then, Forrest not only ran, but helped finance a group home for mentally challenged people in Atlanta. He called it Destiny’s Child. For that Mosley bout, he had charted a bus for nine folks — ages 17 to 68 — who lived in the home so they and some staffers could come to Indianapolis and take part in his big night. He said he had done it as much for himself as for them. He said he drew inspiration from the way they tackled their struggles.
“He was a caring humanitarian who always stood up for what he believed to be the fairness of life — it was truly his calling,” said Kelly Swanson, his longtime publicist. “When he wasn’t boxing, it was his full-time job….He loved the (challenged) children When they would see him, they would just light up, and some of them couldn’t even talk. Vernon was very much involved. He’d have some of the kids over to his house on Sundays. They were part of his family.”
According to reports out of Atlanta Saturday night, the 38-year-old Forrest — with his 11-year-old godson in the car with him — pulled his Jaguar into a gas station in the Mechanicsville section of Southwest Atlanta about 11 p.m.
As the boy went in to use the restroom, Forrest began putting air in the tires when two men are said to have approached. Initial reports were that they attempted a car jacking, but Forrest’s manager, Charles Watson told reporters that one of them came up to the boxer asking for money. When Forrest pulled out his wallet, one guy pulled a gun, grabbed the wallet and started running.
Forrest gave chase. The guy and his accomplice had semi-automatic weapons. There are reports Forrest also had a gun.
“The guy turned the corner and Vernon didn’t see him,” Watson said. “He turned around to go back to the car. That’s when the they started firing at Vernon.’
According to Atlanta TV reporter Ashley Hayes, Forrest was shot eight times.
When I heard about him taking after the alleged thugs, it reminded me of another street incident I witnessed when I walked with him back to his room at the Marriott Hotel after he defeated Mosley in Indianapolis. It was past midnight and he wanted to visit briefly with family and friends and then go to bed. He had an early-morning flight because he wanted to make Sunday services at his Atlanta church.
As we walked along, he came upon another scene involving drawn weapons.
Here’s how I wrote it up:
They had their guns drawn and stuck in the rolled-down windows of a white SUV.
“What did you put behind the seat?” a tense cop yelled at one of the four guys in the SUV.
“Don’t move!” screamed another cop on the other side of the vehicle. “I said, do not move!”
It was just past midnight Saturday when welterweight champ Vernon Forrest came walking up on this volatile scene at the corner of Georgia St. and Capitol Ave. in downtown Indianapolis. With a few friends, he was quietly making his way through the tens of thousands of people who clogged the city’s sidewalks and streets for the Indiana Black Expo Summer Celebration.
As one of the cops shined a flashlight on one of the SUV’s backseat passengers, another armed policeman again yelled a warning: “Don’t f—-ing move!”
Passing just a few feet from the stand-off, Forrest said in a voice loud enough only for his companions to hear: “Anybody got a video cam?”
With that, he kept walking. He wanted no part of this nasty confrontation.
I wish it had been the same Saturday night.
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By Michael Hogan is weak
July 27, 2009 6:06 AM | Link to this
Lesson to be learned is:listen to wimps who have clearly not served in the military and believes everyone else will stick up for you. Fight for your life. If everyone stood up and fought back, you wouldn’t have so many cowards getting away with crimes. Worried about getting killed? Roll over and die today then. Live.
By Michael Hogan
July 27, 2009 12:18 AM | Link to this
Lesson to be learned is:don’t die over a car…let the bad guys have whatever they want.Keep yourself alive;others are depending on you.Such a tragedy.Goodbye Forrest…your goodness will be missed by many on this earth…..