A London boxer has died tragically after collapsing in the ring in the fourth round of his professional debut on Sunday.
Sherif Lawal, 29, was facing Portuguese fighter Malam Varela at the Harrow Leisure Center when he was dropped by a right hand to the head in the opening bout of a match promoted by Costakis Evangelou. The fight was stopped and CPR was administered in the ring for 10-15 minutes, according to BoxingNewsOnline.com. Lawal was taken to Northwick Park Hospital where he was pronounced dead a short time later.
The rest of the card, which was supposed to feature light heavyweight boxer Amarildo Bakaj and cruiserweight Roberto Bakaj, was canceled out of respect for the struggling boxer.
“This was a sad incident and I sympathize with Sherif's family. It's a tough time for everyone involved in the boxing team and we're trying to appreciate what happened. Nobody wants to see something like this in any game,” Evangelou was quoted as saying by Solezwe.
“Sherif was a good boxer and a man.”
British Boxing Board of Control Secretary General Robert Smith was quoted by BoxingScene as confirming that Lawal had passed all his pre-fight medical tests. “It's a bad, sad thing to happen,” said Smith.
Lawal, who trained at St. Pancras Amateur Boxing Club, trained by CJ Hussein, who was quoted in a Camden New Journal story in March describing Lawal as “a real inspiration to all the young boxers in the gym.” “
BoxingScene reports that Lawal started boxing in 2018 and competed in the National Elite Championship as a junior last year.
!function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s)
{if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod?
n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)};
if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version=’2.0′;
n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0;
t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0];
s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window,document,’script’,
‘
fbq(‘init’, ‘161022561146884’);
fbq(‘track’, ‘PageView’);
(function(d, s, id) {
var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];
if (d.getElementById(id)) return;
js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id;
js.src = “//connect.facebook.net/en_US/sdk.js#xfbml=1&version=v2.10&appId=128026463954740”;
fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs);
}(document, ‘script’, ‘facebook-jssdk’));
Source link
