Word: johnson
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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When middleweight Stephan Johnson died Dec. 5 from injuries suffered in a Nov. 20 bout in Atlantic City, the outpouring of grief that greeted his death was appropriate, but was consistently couched in terms of the minor magnitude of boxing to life...
...Johnson's mother said she had asked her son to leave boxing, but he loved the sport too much for that...
...Johnson death is painted as a tragic act in the morality play whereby an unreasoned devotion to sport ends up costing an athlete the ultimate price...
...Stephan Johnson fought Paul Vaden even after he had been placed on indefinite medical suspension and had been blocked by the Association of Boxing Commissions from stepping in the ring until he passed neurological tests. Turns out, Johnson shouldn't have been fighting at all, but he needed the $10,000 purse and boxing was his only livelihood--his passion by default...
...Johnson fought because he didn't have a financial choice, and the media transformed him into a martyr, a victim of boxing's brutality and all-encompassing greed...