The Tenth Death

PRIZE FIGHTING

He was a familiar figure around the seamy fight clubs of Philadelphia, Washington, and Reading, Pa. -- a sleepy-eyed Negro who would trade leather with anyone for the price of a train ticket and a night on the town.

Once, Ring magazine picked him as its "Promising Fighter of the Month"-but that was in 1958, and the promise was mostly unfulfilled. He lost almost as often as he won (ten wins, seven losses, three draws), and it was not long before Ernie Knox, 26, was eking out an un certain living from part-time jobs and unemployment checks. But always there was that dream of the big time.

One night last week, Ernie climbed into the ring at the Baltimore Coliseum to fight New York's Wayne Bethea, 31. A hulking 205-pounder, Bethea had fought Sonny Liston and Ezzard Charles, had a record of 32-19-3. Ernie weighed 184 Ibs. on the boxing commission's scales, and he had not fought in nearly a year. "You have to prove yourself," shrugged his manager. "You have to be ready to take a chance."

Some chance. In the ninth round, Bethea unloaded a series of bombs and Ernie toppled to the canvas. Rushed to a hospital for "observation," he asked for a drink of water, sank into a deep coma, and died of a brain hemorrhage --boxing's tenth fatality of 1963.

A Baltimore grand jury started investigating the circumstances of Ernie's death. By week's end it had turned up two shocking bits of information. Ernie's cut of the $1,620 purse was hardly enough to pay his burial expenses. It came to $243. And at the city morgue, Ernie Knox's body weighed only 153 Ibs. The boxing commission sheepishly admitted that Knox had been permitted to weigh in with his clothes on. Said the autopsy surgeon: "All you had to do was look at this kid's body to know he didn't weigh 184 Ibs."

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