Friday, May 11, 2007 | 7:25 a.m.
Lorenzo Bethea lost a bout that preceded the Floyd Mayweather Jr.-Oscar De La Hoya showdown Saturday at the MGM Grand Garden Arena, but won a much bigger fight when a portable medical scanning device detected a potentially life-threatening brain injury.
Bethea, 27, was taken by ambulance to Valley Hospital after his fight was stopped in the seventh round of a scheduled eight-round bout with lightweight John Murray of Manchester, England, Dr. Tony Alamo, the Nevada State Athletic Commission chairman, said Thursday.
Although unlucky in the bout, Bethea, a 139-pounder from Atlantic City, had the very good fortune of fighting on a night when the athletic commission for the first time had access to a portable CT scanner on loan from NeuroLogica Corp., a Danvers, Mass., medical company.
A post-fight scanner exam showed that Bethea had suffered a brain bleed, the first known injury of its kind since the deaths of two fighters in 2005 prompted Nevada officials to study ways to make the inherently violent sport a bit safer.
Had it not been for the scan, Bethea might not have gone to the hospital and could have died from further brain injury in a future bout, Alamo said.
Bethea was released from the hospital Monday after his condition had improved, but has been suspended indefinitely from fighting in Nevada, Alamo said.
NeuroLogica offered the scanner, together with a board-certified radiologist and a technician, at no cost to the state because the equipment represented new technology and had never been used for boxing, according to Keith Kizer, the commission's executive director.
Bethea, one of eight fighters over the weekend who voluntarily submitted to brain scans after their fights, was the only one identified with a brain injury.
During a state panel's review of ways to better protect boxers, one suggestion was ruling out mismatches that permit up-and-coming boxers to build impressive records against lesser opponents. And to some, Saturday's undercard bout between the 20-0 Murray and the 6-4 Bethea - a pairing arranged by matchmaker Eric Gomez and approved by Kizer - is exactly the kind of questionable matchup officials had in mind.
Bethea had lost three of his past four fights, two by technical knockout, with his only victory in that stretch coming against an opponent with a losing record, according to Boxrec.com.
Kizer, though, said a closer look at Murray's record shows that many of his victories came against foes with lopsided losing records. According to Boxrec, Murray beat fighters with career records of 8-43, 3-39, 6-15, 16-78, 10-68, 15-34, 19-65, 12-29 and 30-166.
"You can't just look at their records," Kizer said. "You have to look at the guys they've fought."
In a fight scored by three judges, Murray was well ahead of Bethea through the first six rounds. Although there was no knockdown in the fight, Bethea's corner had the contest stopped in the seventh round.
When Bethea was scanned in an area near the locker room after his fight, it was discovered that he had a sliver subdural hematoma with a slight tilting of his brain known as a midline shift, Alamo said.
"During the fight he did not suffer what I thought was severe head trauma," said 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."
Alamo said the ringside physicians were undecided about whether to send Bethea to the hospital until they got the results of the CT scan .
A second scan performed on Bethea at the hospital Monday showed that the brain tilting had improved and that he had recovered from the brain bleed, Kizer said. Still, Kizer said it was unlikely that Bethea would be allowed to fight in the United States anytime soon, if ever again .
Alamo, Kizer and Assemblyman Harvey Munford, D-Las Vegas, who served on the commission's safety panel , created after the 2005 deaths of boxers Leavander Johnson and Martin Sanchez in Las Vegas, said they hoped Bethea's injury - in particular, how the scanner quickly detected it - would prompt the Nevada Legislature to approve the commission's request for more money to pay for increased boxing safety measures.
"This is a great example of how scans can benefit the fighters," Kizer said. "I would hope some good comes out of this."
The commission is seeking $174,000 in each of the next two years to help pay for post-fight magnetic resonance imaging scans for all boxers who want them, as well as about an additional $100,000 for other medical programs, Kizer said.
That budget request, however, does not include money for portable scanning equipment that could be used in boxing arenas immediately after fights. Kizer estimated that the cost of the scanner used Saturday was at least $500,000.
"In a big fight like Saturday the eyes of the entire country were on Las Vegas and they rely on us, as the boxing capital of the world, to support boxing safety issues and make sure we minimize the risks to boxers," Munford said.
Under Nevada law, boxers who have never fought in Nevada are required to undergo an MRI to get a boxing license , but the law requires additional scans only if ordered by the commission.
Kizer said Bethea's last MRI before the fight, performed in December 2005 at the request of the New York State Athletic Commission, produced a normal brain reading. Since then, Bethea had fought four other times before Saturday.
Some medical experts have told the Sun that it would be preferable for fighters to have more frequent MRIs that could help doctors determine whether boxers have suffered too much brain damage to continue their careers.
"Obviously, the more scans the better," Kizer said. "But we'll never know if he got an MRI a month ago whether it would have been different than the result he had in December 2005."
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