Boxer’s death continues to stump experts

Dean Juipe

Thursday, June 27, 2002 | 9:51 a.m.

The death of professional boxer Pedro Alcazar on Monday in Las Vegas continues to mystify a neurologist who treated him immediately following his fight last Saturday at the MGM Grand Garden Arena.

Dr. Margaret Goodman said Wednesday that Alcazar exhibited no alarming symptoms and showed nothing that would indicate that he would die some 36 hours after his junior bantamweight title fight with Fernando Montiel was stopped in the sixth round.

"It's so sad," Goodman said. "I'm baffled by it and it has me asking myself two questions: What can we do to prevent this from happening again; and if it could happen to him, why doesn't it happen even more often?"

Alcazar became the fifth pro fighter to die following a fight in Las Vegas in the past 20 years when he collapsed in his MGM hotel room Monday morning and was removed from life support later that day at Desert Springs Hospital.

An autopsy is being conducted, yet the results may not be known for one to three weeks, said Dr. Flip Homansky.

"Is what happened to him unheard of?" Goodman said, answering the question herself. "No, it's not. But for a ring death, it is atypical. On paper he looked (fine) and even in the hospital there was minimal evidence of him having been in a fight. The usual signs -- such as blood in the ears -- weren't present."

Alcazar, 26, came into the fight with a record of 25-0-2 but lost when Montiel continued to connect with punches to the body, and, to a slightly lesser extent, the head. Referee Kenny Bayless stopped the bout in the sixth round and neither Alcazar nor his corner people protested.

"I thought Kenny was perfectly situated to stop the fight when he did," said Nevada State Athletic Commission executive director Marc Ratner.

Alcazar, a native and resident of Panama who was making his U.S. debut, was agitated after the stoppage, however.

"Oh god, yes," Goodman said, when asked if she spoke to the fighter following the bout. "He was so visibly distraught and crying uncontrollably. I had a pretty good conversation with him in Spanish and he complained of 'belly shots' and pointed to his right rib cage while denying anything else (was hurt).

"He kept saying, 'It wasn't the fight I prepared for' and 'I don't want to go back home without my title.' But I thought he had just run out of gas and didn't have anything left."

Alcazar, nicknamed "El Rockero" and a single parent of two, did not have a serious rib injury and was not taken to a hospital after the fight. But he was checked again, twice, by NSAC-assigned physicians at the MGM before adjourning to his hotel room.

"The only complaints he had were related to his rib cage," Goodman said of the follow-up examinations in the dressing room.

"He'd walked out of the ring on his own and if there had been any question he was hurt, we would have ordered an MRI that night," Ratner added. "As I went home that night, I didn't think anyone was seriously hurt and I had no reason whatsoever to think something like this would happen."

Goodman said Alcazar "was essentially gone and clinically brain dead" as he arrived at Desert Springs. Shortly thereafter, doctors determined it was pointless to keep him on life support and removed the apparatus.

Alcazar will not be buried or returned to Panama until the autopsy is completed.