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Looking at Yo Sam Choi

Of my time spent writing about boxing, last Thursday was the darkest. On that day, former WBC light flyweight champion Yo Sam Choi died.

I have written before on death in the boxing ring: Ernie Schaaf, Benny Paret, and Duk Koo Kim have all been subjects of articles. Ernie Schaaf, I said, represented how a boxer’s death can be exploited to raise another fighter’s career, Primo Carnera’s; Benny Paret, I wrote, showed how all boxers die too soon; and Korean Duk Koo Kim’s death, I insisted, showed how a single event is never solely responsible for the decline of boxing – in Korea’s case, the country’s economic rise led to boxing’s fall. Now, I know that when I wrote those articles I missed the point.

In those articles, it was all about the abstractions – boxing promotion, boxing careers, and boxing fortunes – but not about the concrete: a man dying from getting punched in the head. And that’s the lesson that was forcefully brought home to me when I saw Choi slump to the canvas after winning every round in a pretty dull fight against Heri Amol in Seoul on Christmas Day. When Choi fell from a right hand in the closing seconds of the twelfth, I knew it was no good; when he got up to beat the count, I knew he was hurt. When he was led back to his corner, I started praying that he would stay conscious. He had made a gesture with his right hand, patting it against the side of his head just before getting hit. It was the same gesture that Gerald McClellan made before being knocked out and injured permanently in a bout with Nigel Benn in 1995. Just like McClellan and Benn, Choi and Amol had butted heads more than a few times during their twelve round fight.

I was supposed to be there ringside for Choi’s match with Amol. I had the information for the media day and the bout all written down in my little scheduler. I was all set to spend Christmas Eve morning as the lone English speaking journalist at the weigh in and then sit ringside to report the fight for Max Boxing on Christmas Day. But some events intervened. My wife insisted I should stay home. It was Christmas after all. Looking at her very pregnant belly, I was swayed, knowing that it was Christmas and that Choi was fighting one more overmatched opponent on his march to a world title shot.

I had first met Choi back in September as he fought for the vacant WBO International belt against a Thai fighter named Terdkiat Jandaeng. I had tried to arrange a trip to his gym in the week leading up to the fight, but his manager Kyoung Ho Choi, also his brother, had said Choi was too busy training. I had gone to the media day and talked to him instead.

When I met Choi, he was a friendly guy wearing a gray, down filled winter coat on a hot day in late summer. As he gulped down the Chinese food laid out for him, he answered my questions in Korean, and when I was at a loss, his brother, a fluent English speaker, would translate his answers.

My questions, I thought, were pretty tough. Why did he think he could win a world title when at 35 years of age he is competing among the flyweights, a weight class that depends on youth and speed maybe more than any other division? Why would he continue to fight knowing that the guy who took the junior flyweight title that he held from 1999 to 2002, Jorge Arce, had been demolished by the young Cristian Mijares only a few months earlier? Didn’t that suggest his time had passed? Shouldn’t he pack it in?

He gave me the kind of answers expected from an aging fighter. He wanted to be champion again. He wanted to have a big fight in America. He wanted a beautiful retirement. He also said that because I wrote for an American web site, I could help get him the big money by writing about the fight. I promised I would write about it, feeling that when he won the regional WBO belt to go with his status as an aging ex-champion, someone would surely give him a title shot.

As I got up to leave, I got a sense of his personality. Choi spoke in English for the only time: “You are a handsome guy,” he yelled, maybe thinking flattery would make me write a rave review of his performance in the match. And we all cracked up laughing.

When it came time for the fight, I was hustled to ringside by his manager and was struck by one thing immediately. After Choi took off his robe and my eyes traveled from his feet to his shoulders, he looked to be in incredible shape. I’m 35. I go to the gym. But I didn’t look like that guy. My perception of his physical condition, however, changed when I saw his face. It looked like one of those jokes on the Jay Leno show when the comedian’s face is put on a body builder’s torso. The age of Choi’s face and the youth of his body were incongruous. Again, I asked myself, why is he fighting?

I watched the fight and saw him win a one-sided affair. And here was my evaluation of Choi in the fight re-cap I wrote for Max Boxing:

Choi’s legs were strong throughout the fight and except for a relatively relaxed eleventh round where he mostly jabbed, he dominated the fight. He did evince some danger signs though. Choi has trouble avoiding right hands. He has a habit of pulling straight back from them, whether they are looping or straight. Jandaeng hit him with at least a dozen of them and if he had some power on them, he might have hurt Choi. Choi, if he wants that light flyweight or flyweight title, will have to avoid those right hands.

Choi won – easy, going away. But he got hit by right hands. Despite good boxing skills, he would be an easy target for a hard hitting young fighter. So again I asked myself, “why is he fighting?”

So there I was on Christmas Day as Choi and Amol headed to the late rounds. I was feeling guilty but somewhat justified for not going to this one-sided bout. As the seconds ticked down to end the fight, I was about to get up to review the Indonesian’s record on boxrec.com when that right hand landed and less than a minute later Choi was unconscious on the canvas. After Choi was carried out of the arena, I called his brother to find out if everything was okay, and he said it was. Only when I watched the local news a little later did I learn that Choi had brain surgery and that he had only a 20% chance of surviving.

Once the news of Choi was known, he became the top news story here, his picture flashing everywhere on television, in the newspapers, all over the tabloids. For once, my friends asked me about that horrible sport I like so much, boxing. “Was it true he got paid less than $3 000 for the fight?” they would ask. Or “what do you think about Choi’s diary where he said he was ambivalent about boxing and didn’t really want to fight anymore?” Those questions just added to the heartbreak of it all as hope ebbed and flowed.

For the next week, I hoped alongside the people in South Korea and the rest of the boxing fans throughout the world. But to be honest, I didn’t have much hope. Too many screw-ups had happened. In the ambulance, there had been no oxygen for Choi; outside the ambulance, Seoul traffic had continued its habit of not getting out of the way for emergency vehicles, costing Choi ten-minutes of care from the doctors at Chun Hyang University Hospital. The inevitable happened. Soon after being transferred to Asan Medical Center, Choi was taken off life support and his organs were removed.

At Choi’s memorial service at Asan Medical Center, thousands arrived to pay their respects, including the President-elect Myung Bak Lee. Those of the Korean public interviewed on television did not blame boxing itself for Choi’s death as much as lax medical safeguards for fighters. Boxing reform might come here to the Land of the Morning Calm as a result of Choi’s death.

I’ve spoken to Choi’s brother since Choi died and he insists that what happened in the ring was an accident as it surely was. But he also told me that no matter what, if I ever write about Choi again, to make sure I say he is a champion – and he did use the present tense.

He didn’t have to tell me that. Yo Sam Choi is a champion not only for winning and holding the WBC light flyweight title from 1999 to 2002. He is also a champion because he has made a concrete difference to the lives of others: he gave his organs to people in need of organ donations. Korea, a country whose culture is rooted in Confucian values, treats the body as sacred. Thus, organ donations are often blocked by family members of the deceased. On the day Choi’s organs were removed, a woman received his liver; a man in his 20s received a kidney; and a 36-year-old woman received his heart.

With this knowledge of his generosity, I don’t have to lower myself to abstractions to explain what happened to Choi as I did with Schaaf, with Paret, and with Kim.

With Choi, I can be concrete: he died and now others can live.

He is and always will be a champion, indeed. And to the friends and families of those he gave new life to, he is not just a champion but the greatest champion of all time.