According to the Kansas City Medical Examiner, 24 year-old super middleweight Randie Carver of Kansas City died of "blunt head trauma" two days after collapsing in the ring during the tenth round of his NABF title
defense against 31 year-old Kabary "The Egyptian Magician" Salem. The America Presents show was broadcast live from Kansas City, Missouri on Sunday, Sept. 12 on the Fox Sports Network.

   The boxing regulator in Missouri is the Office of Athletics in the Division of Professional Registration of the Department of Economic Development. Jim Gardner, a spokesman for the Department told us last week
that the agency had conducted an investigation into Carver's death and had found that no officials, and no one connected to the promotion were culpable. Individuals in the agency watched the video tape of the fight,
and copies of the tape were sent for review to commissions in other states including Pennsylvania, Indiana, Maryland, Georgia, California and Nevada as well as to the NABF and other sanctioning bodies. According to Gardner, all those reviewing the tape agreed that the fight was marred by intentional head butts and holding but that the referee could not have done more than he did to prevent the fatal outcome. Gardner also says that
the Kansas City Police investigated the death and closed the case as an "Accidental Death" resulting from the nature of the activity--that is, boxing.

     Gardner acknowledges that Carver was the second boxer to suffer a major brain injury in Missouri this year. In January of 1999, a Mexican Jr. Flyweight named Fernando Ibarra was injured in a bout in St. Louis and
went into a coma following a sixth round knockout. Ibarra was saved by brain surgery and eventually recovered. Ibarra's manager, interestingly, had been banned from boxing in Mexico after another of his fighters died in the ring there.


    Many TV viewers, including this reporter, saw the Randie Carver bout with Kabary Salem as a sprawling, foul-filled alley mugging in which Carver was battered and overwhelmed by Salem's constant holding, grappling, and the spectacular multiple headbutts that appeared gleefully intentional. The scholars in my living room were calling for Salem to be disqualified by the end of the third round. Didn't happen. Referee Ross Strada docked Salem two points for holding early but then seemed to give up on controlling the action.  We've all seen fights stopped and fighters disqualified for far less than what Salem got up to in the ring that night.

 
    Being neither judge nor jury, I get to have a raw opinion on the matter, unfettered by legalistic concerns. I suspect that the many head butts could have caused, or at least exaggerated Carver's brain injury. It's my opinion that the referee, the ringside physician who checked Carver between rounds and allowed him to continue, and Carver's cornermen are all responsible for this kid's death. The most powerful argument I've ever heard for the banning of boxing is the insistence by Missouri's regulators that everything was done correctly by the officials in that bout. If that were true I'd say shut it down, I'll go watch ping-pong for the rest of my life. But I don't believe it. I think that the hovering storm of potential law suits has the state agency covering it's broad, vulnerable, and culpable butt.