Who or What Killed Anthony Jones?

By Joe Calvey
San Antonio Observer

The Arkansas State Athletic Commission’s 143 page report on the death of boxer Anthony Jones is exceptionally detailed.  Jones died after getting knocked out in his pro debut. The report lists the names of every official in attendance at Fitness Unlimited in Benton, Arkansas. It listed every official who contributed to the report. Each and every punch that was thrown, each and every step that was taken by commission officials in attendance even the manner in which the scale at the weigh in was calibrated.

The report did not examine the decision by the ringside physician in attendance, Dr. Devan Frandsen, D.O.  to transport Jones to the nearest hospital, Saline Memorial located less than one mile away. In stated the physician did not observe any life threatening signs but used an "abundance of caution" in implementing the Emergency Action Plan.

Jone’s blood pressure, respiration, pulse, blood work and each descending step over the 8 hours and 54 minutes Jones remained alive was detailed. When the Code Blue was called the report detailed the manner in which the crash team tried but failed to save Jones’s life.

Under Cause of Death was a portion titled;
B. "The Short & Overly Simplistic Answer Using An Analogy", which tried to explain that there was not one thing that was the cause of Jones’s death but rather a confluence of many things each contributing to the death. It also contained a bizarre lengthy quote. Here’s an excerpt of that quote.

"The body knows what fighters don’t - how to protect itself". 
                                                       Eddie "Scrap Iron" Dupris.

Durpis is a fictional character from the 2004 movie Million Dollar Baby. Only in boxing could the death of a participant motivate a state official to use a Morgan Freeman character to explain their befuddlement regarding the cause of death.

Arkansas’s laws governing boxing are detailed and explicit. They do not leave room for shady promoters and corrupt managers to game the system easily.

Boxer Anthony Jones like fellow boxers Andre Berto, Vitaly Klitschko and Roy Jones, Jr. and many others used performance enhancing drugs. Specifically anabolic steroids. Jones also used supplements and according to his friends interviewed by the Commission’s investigators he probably lived by the "more is better". In other words if one is good for you two must be twice as good.

Maybe it was Quincy Palmer’s power punching that did in Jones. More likely Jones had one of those brains that was set to explode after a minimal concussion. The brain is more likely to experience a concussion if the athlete is dehydrated. Since Jones was a heavyweight and not cutting weight like every other boxer who is not a heavy weight dehydration should not have been an issue. But indeed he was.

Maybe as the boxing commission report from the State of Arkansas suggested it was a high level of potassium that contributed to the renal failure and cardiac arrest that killed him. Because like Jones’s brain his other major systems failed him bit by bit in the hours after he the ten count.

Jones was not a horse yet his autopsy results showed he had traces of the veterinary steroid Boldenone in his body. Ironically the increased muscle mass Jones experienced from multiple steroids and supplements he used, including according to the report Creatine from GNC, contributed to his death. In the hours after he arrived in the hospital Jones’s muscles were dumping toxins into his blood overloading his liver and kidney’s ability to function. 

One interesting occurrence during the nearly six minutes of the bout’s duration happened. Remember Jones was knocked unconscious at the very end of the second round but was ahead on the score cards and dominated the first round. It was during the first round that the fight could have been ended by TKO and some might argue it should have been ended.

The well respected veteran referee in the ring,  Martin Tunstall, called a standing 8 count on Palmer. The standing 8 count is not allowed under Arkansas rules. The thinking is if the referee has to step in to prevent a fighter from injury then call the TKO.

Here is where the commission report has it’s one major flaw. The earlier reference to Scrap Iron Dupris was less a flaw in the process and more a flaw of common sense. Jones’s suffered the knock out at least four minutes after the standing 8 and the commission said that it was insignificant. But throughout the report brain trauma was center stage with diagrams and detailed explanations.

The commission though states Jones was already dying by using another analogy this time employing the Domino Theory. It firmly states the fight ending in the first round would not have affected the final outcome regarding Jones’s life. And like the Scrap Iron Dupris quote being pure fiction the assertion that "the first Dominos had already fallen and Jones’s cascading systems failure had already begun’ is pure butt covering opinion.

Though the ringside doctor was correct in sending Jones to the hospital the report stated he did not exhibit any life threatening signs. So for the investigation of Jones death by the same regulatory body that oversaw the event exonerating itself is a definitive flaw in the system regarding boxer safety.

Referee Tunstall, who is not responsible for Jones’s death in any manner made a mistake in not stopping the fight in the first round. In all likelihood Jones would have continued his boxing career if he didn’t die that night. And certainly one way to predict the future is to examine the past. Jones probably would have engaged in the same dangerous behavior of steroid use. His chances of outliving the consequences of his behavior were probably as limited as his chances of survival following the knock out.

So what could be learned from this tragedy? Brain injuries are more likely when dehydration is present in a fighter. Dehydration is a regular part of most boxer’s cutting weight. Weigh ins are followed by boxers immediately beginning re-hydration as soon as they step off the scale. Talk of fighters gaining as much as 15% of their body weight overnight before entering the ring is common.

Jones’s combined dehydration intentionally or otherwise with steroids, supplements, electrolyte replenishment and regular foods like a banana which he ate shortly before the bout began.

Most boxing managers at the entry and club level do little more than arrange a place to work out and set up fights. They don’t pay their fighters a salary or their health insurance. They are usually hoping to win the lottery with one great fighter. Almost all of the rules regulating the sport in and out of the ring have come from the boxer being taken advantage of by managers.

Requiring regular nutritional education for both the boxer and the manager wouldn’t hurt. It wouldn’t hurt requiring columnists to do the same but that might violate the 1st Amendment. Testing all boxers randomly and regularly for steroids with 2 year penalties and stiff fines might prevent the fate Jones met.

So who killed 27 year old Anthony Jones on Saturday January 29, 2011? It wasn’t Quincy Palmer, Martin Tunstall or the Arkansas State Athletic Commission. No, Jones was a victim of his dreams, and boxing.