25 Years Later: The Death of Duk Koo Kim
Few events in the last 50 years of boxing history have had as much impact as the death of Korean boxer Duk Koo Kim.
After an especially brutal fight against Ray "Boom Boom" Mancini, Kim fell into a coma and died, stunning boxing fans who had watched the fight televised on CBS. (Yes, at one point not so long ago boxing matches were actually shown on network television. Kim's death is one of the likely reasons why that is no longer the case.)
What is perhaps surprising is that this sad anniversary isn't receiving more attention in the national sports media. Whether indicative of boxing's slow, sad decline into irrelevance or the media's inability to apply analysis to landmark events even decades after the fact is a debate for another day, but the linked article has some fascinating insights into how the death of Kim impacted Mancini, his and Kim's families as well as boxing in general.
