Editorial: Take off the kid gloves

Sunday, May 13, 2007 | 7:03 a.m.

Boxer Lorenzo Bethea is proof positive that the state should institute regular post-fight brain scans at sanctioned fights.

As reported by Steve Kanigher in last week's Las Vegas Sun, Bethea, who was fighting on the undercard of the Floyd Mayweather-Oscar De La Hoya fight, had a CT scan done in the arena.

Doctors found Bethea had a potentially fatal brain bleed, and he was sent to the hospital. Without the scanner in the arena, doctors might have let Bethea go home.

"During the fight he did not suffer what I thought was severe head trauma," said Nevada State Athletic Commission Chairman Dr. Tony Alamo, a former ringside physician. "In fact, he was angry that the fight was stopped. When he went back to the locker room he looked clinically stabilized."

Bethea's license has been suspended and he was released last week from the hospital. He might have gone on to fight, and perhaps die from further injury, had it not been for the scan, which only happened because the scanner's maker had the machine on loan as a demonstration.

Despite two post-bout deaths and two career-ending brain injuries in 2005, the state has not made the sport as safe as it should be by requiring mandatory post-bout brain scans. As it stands, state law allows fighters to go up to five years between scans, in which time a boxer could fight dozens of times.

Post-bout scans, as Bethea can attest, are a life-and-death issue and should be paid for by the boxing establishment, as such measures will help improve the sport's reputation.

Assemblyman Harvey Munford said people "rely on us, as the boxing capital of the world, to support boxing safety issues and make sure we minimize the risks to boxers."

We couldn't agree more.