posted by Large

This trend whereby boxing loses some of its most beloved fighters, another one seemingly every week, to early, violent death, is really getting disturbing. The latest victim is Vernon Forrest, dead at the age of 38, killed last night during an attempted carjacking while he was filling the tires of his Jaguar in Atlanta. Two punks carrying pistols tried to boost Vernon’s car, but evidently he pulled his own piece on them and chased them down the street. Gunshots were exchanged and he took one in the head. The punks both escaped.

Forrest wasn’t an icon of boxing at the level of Gatti or Arguello, but he was known to be one of the sport’s best citizens, tireless when it came to charity work for kids and the mentally challenged.

Though he had a long and successful career in which he competed in the Olympics and won three world titles in two different weight classes, Vernon nevertheless always will be remembered as something of a hard luck story. A favorite to win a gold medal in Barcelona, he got a dose of food poisoning before his first-round bout and lost unceremoniously. Later, on the cusp of mega-stardom after his two signature victories over Shane Mosley in 2002, he was stopped in the third round by Ricardo Mayorga in only the first fight of a brand-new multi-fight deal with HBO. By the time of the rematch, Forrest already was struggling with the left shoulder and elbow problems that would force him to have multiple surgeries and stay out of the ring for two years during his prime. After Mayorga beat him a second time, the surgeries began, and his all-too-brief stint on the A-list was over.

He fought well when he returned to the ring, beat Ike Quartey in an exciting fight in August of 2006 and then won the WBC junior middleweight belt from Carlos Baldomir in 2007, a title he lost and then won back from Sergio Mora last year.

Inactive since that second Mora fight in September of ’08, there had been some talk of him matching up with Sergio Martinez, which would have been an entertaining fight for sure. But now he’s dead, a victim of some random thuggery and his own instinct to fight back. R.I.P. Vernon and God bless. As for the rest of you fighters out there, for Pete’s sake, be safe and watch your back, because some very nasty vibe is loose in the atmosphere lately and it seems to have the best of the boxing world in its crosshairs.