Medics believe boxer Stephan Johnson was unconscious even before he hit the canvas to end a junior middleweight title bout against Paul Valden in the casino resort of Atlantic City.
He remained on a respirator in a coma in a nearby hospital last night, doctors unsure whether he would ever recover from the flurry of punches in the fight's final moments last Saturday - strikes described by one witness as sounding like 'a baseball bat hitting a water-melon'.
As his family and friends wait in a silent bedside vigil, commentators warn Johnson's plight is merely the latest tragedy and scandal to rock the sport.
Boxing may have played a unique social and sporting role in the American century, but at its end it is facing a ten-count all of its own. The fight game has never been in such desperate shape and its future as a professional sport is in serious doubt.
What shocked commentators over Johnson's knock-down was not that procedures were bent or twisted, but that it was allowed to happen almost as a matter of routine. His coaches had first urged Johnson to quit in 1993 when he suffered a detached retina in a hard-fought 12-round defeat.
He passed the required checks and battled on, but in April he was punched senseless in a bout in Toronto.
