A once feared knockout artist is now dead. Edwin Valero, the Venezuelan brawler who specialized in knocking out his opponents stabbed his wife to death, and then took his own life. This once champion is a coward. This man took the life of a young woman and then took the coward way out and killed himself. He may have been a fearless warrior inside of the square circle, but in the end he did what a coward does.
This has been a very bad week for promoter Bob Arum as well. His matchmaker had a stroke, his prize horse Kelly Pavlik got whooped by Sergio Martinez, and now his South American champion is dead. This doesn’t compare to what Edwin Valero’s wife went through, or what her family is going through. Something was desperately wrong with Valero’s head. It’s hard to imagine that a person of sound mind would murder his wife, then take is own life the next day.
I recently talked with former light middleweight world champion Sergio Mora. During the interview, Mora talked a little bit about the Valero incident. This was before Edwin took his own life, and right after the news broke that he killed his wife. At the time of the interview the news just broke that Valero killed his wife. Mora talked about when he met Valero, ” I met him last year, and when I met him he seemed like he had some issues. I never knew about his motorcycle accident, apparently he had a metal plate put into his head. I really thought that the guy was weird when I met him. I heard a lot of stories about this guy. But for him to go and kill his wife? And he had a lot of bad press about beating up his wife and getting arrested. I don’t think this guy has ever been right.”
Mississippi boxing people were shocked by the news of Valero’s wife, and equally shocked of Valero’s death. I spoke with the Assistant Mississippi Athletic Commissioner, Patrick Turner today .I got his thoughts on this tragedy, ” It’s a sad day in boxing, a real tragedy” said Turner. “Being a baseball fan like I am, when you look at all of the old timers in the game and you see them help the guys coming up it just seems like that’s the way things should be in boxing too. Boxing needs to do this more. Now we lost someone in boxing in Edwin Valero that perhaps could have done so much for the sport, and for the young fighters coming up. This is a horrible thing to have happened. We all will keep the Valero family in our prayers.”
There has been a lot of tragic news in the sport. We lost guys like Arturo Gatti, Vernon Forrest, Alexis Arguelo, and now Valero. Taking your own life is bad enough, but to murder another person and then follow that up by taking your own life is a cowardly thing to do. He could have gone on to greatness in the ring one day. He may have had a chance at fighting the greatest fighter alive today in Manny Pacquiao. Valero had all of the tools to earn millions and millions of dollars. All of this will be for not. In two days, we lost Valero’s wife, and now Valero.
Read Michael Marley’s latest Valero article here – http://http://www.examiner.com/x-5699-Boxing-Examiner~y2010m4d19-Edwin-Valeros-final-KOs-Murders-wife-then-commits-suicide-in-jail
Boxing will press on and hopefully we will have a better 2010 and 2011.
