R.I.P. Alexis Arguello: Suicide or Assassination?

By: MODI

Yesterday, boxing great and master ring scientist Alexis Arguello was found dead from a gunshot wound to his chest. Arguello was one of the best lightweights to ever lace up the gloves and his first fight with Aaron Pryor at 140 is one of the greatest fights in boxing history. Last year he also became the Mayor of Managua, Nicaragua.

Up until yesterday, I was never really knew the truly incredible and toller coaster life that Arguello led outside of the boxing ring. This 1985 article by Sports Illustrated is really worth the read (Hat tip: DeadSpin). Besides, it was written by Gary Smith who never disappoints.

Early reports out of Nicaragua have reported it a suicide, and many have already pointed to this article and Arguello’s previous dance with suicide in the 1980’s to support this possibility.

But here is what New York Newsday boxing writer Wallace Matthews had to say about that:

“I don’t believe it for a moment.

…if there was one quality that distinguished Arguello throughout not just his 27-year boxing career but the 57 years he spent on this earth, it was his ability to overcome things that would have laid other men low.

…[There was] one flirtation with suicide by gunshot as he sat in a rowboat with his young son in 1984.

If Alexis Arguello didn’t pull the trigger that day, there’s no way he did it yesterday, not after having pulled his life together once again so spectacularly – more than 20 years after fighting in the jungles of Nicaragua for the Contras, Arguello was elected mayor of Managua only last November.

And over so trivial and nebulous a matter as, according to one report, suspicions of “improper financial dealings?” Preposterous.

…I wouldn’t be a bit surprised to learn that he was murdered.

Or, more accurately, assassinated.”

While we wait for the autopsy report and more information, it is quite hard to accept this as a suicide with so little information. For it to be pronounced as a suicide so quickly after his death and before an autopsy report makes the story even fishier.

But such stories and quick pronouncements are not limited to ex-boxers or foreign mayors. Just a couple of years ago Gerald Washington became the first African-American Mayor of a predominantly white Lousiana town and his death – which came right after taking office — was ruled a suicide. The Washington immediately family rejected the finding.  The potentially explosive story never gained national traction and soon went away.

I doubt the Arguello story will disappear as quickly. Stay tuned.

One final telling anecdote by Matthews will be given the last word:

“I sat next to him one night in Miami, where he was living at the time, watching his old nemesis-turned-good friend Pryor was fighting a journeyman named Bobby Joe Young. Pryor took a bad beating and at one point was so out of it that after absorbing one crushing right, he took a knee and began making the sign-of-the-cross.

I turned to look at Arguello and he was crying. He climbed into the ring even before they stopped the fight and grabbed the man who had viciously stopped him twice in a protective embrace. He wanted to make sure that Pryor would not get hit again that night.

I can’t believe a man with a heart like that would ever put a bullet into it. The Alexis Arguello I knew would have found a way to fight back even when common sense said the fight was over.”

R.I.P.

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