The heartbreaking day that Dwight Ritchie dropped to the canvas never to rise again
As the boxing world comes to grips with Dwight Ritchie’s tragic death, Nick Walshaw reveals how one of Australia’s toughest fighters lost his life to the most innocuous of punches.
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Dwight Ritchie was returning to his corner, they say, with both arms raised above his head, seeking air.
A natural response given, seconds earlier, the fighter dubbed Cowboy had eaten a body shot from close mate and sparring partner Michael Zerafa.
Although not the kind of shot, you should know, that breaks ribs. Or even leaves a man pissing blood.
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No, this body-shot … well, you wouldn’t pick it as any different from the thousands these mates had ripped into one over who knows how many rounds, and preparations.
Which is why nobody can still believe what happened next.
When Ritchie, understood to be turning back towards centre ring with those arms still raised, suddenly dropped.
Then within a blink, unconscious on the canvas.
Taking one loud, unmistakeable breath — then silence.
Today we lost one of our own 😔
— Luke Jackson (@LukeJackson) November 9, 2019
I remember having my professional debut on Dwight’s card. Sending my love to his family, loved ones and the whole of boxing Australia 💔
RIP Dwight Ritchie ðŸ™ðŸ¼ pic.twitter.com/dAzV6cAF2T
And so immediately a call went out from the Melbourne gym to paramedics, who arriving soon after, spent some 40 minutes on the 27-year-old who boxed, worked at a concrete factory and was daddy to three beautiful young daughters.
But already, the Cowboy was gone.
Taken by the same sport that also saved his life.
All of which leaves only sadness and questions.
An autopsy will now be carried out as a grieving Australian boxing community tries to comprehend how a junior middleweight so famed for his grit – having beaten circumstance, cancer twice, even his first four pro rivals illegally, given he was still underage – could then be taken by a punch so innocuous.
A GoFundMe page has also been created for Ritchie’s young family, with Fox Sports also now working with the promoters of Australia’s next three big cards to add even further to that tally.
Those closest to Zerafa have also rallied around the Melbourne middleweight who, after eight years of toil, finally catapulted himself into the Australian sports consciousness in August, scoring an upset win over Queensland hero and former WBO champ, Jeff Horn.
Here was a fella ready to become the new face of Australian fighting.
Yet only months on, the 27-year-old has been so overcome by grief there are suggestions he may delay, or even cancel, the bout Ritchie was helping him prepare for — a blockbuster Horn rematch on December 18.
Cowboy too was readying himself for a return to the ring on December 6, having recently lost for only the second time in his career against rising Sydneysider Tim Tszyu.
A showdown not only slated for the undercard of Tszyu’s next Main Event headliner, but against Tommy Browne — the fighter whose own younger brother Davey was tragically killed in 2015 after being knocked out in the 12th round of a bout.
Again, which leaves only sadness.
Understanding that in Ritchie, you had a fella saved by the fight game.
A proud Aboriginal man who, raised on a mission in Shepparton, had steered clear of the crime, the drugs, the booze, all of it to instead go dancing like his hero, Lionel Rose.
And, sure, Ritchie never had the power of so many rivals.
But good luck finding a fella with more desire to bite down on his mouthpiece and throw volume.
Or win rounds on heart.
The kind of fighter, you just know, would've made Rose smile.
RIP Cowboy.
Click here to donate to the GoFundMe page set up to support Dwight Ritchie’s family
Originally published as The heartbreaking day that Dwight Ritchie dropped to the canvas never to rise again