Francisco 'Frankie' Leal has died Tuesday after suffering a brain injury during a match against Raul Hirales in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico on Saturday night. The junior featherweight suffered a knockout loss during the eighth round. The 26-year-old Mexican boxer was fighting Hirales on the Omar Chavez-Joachim Alcine in a televised fight that was featured on screen across Mexico and the United States. From the get-go, Hirales was dominating the fight and managed to knock Francisco Leal down with a clean right hand in the sixth round. But in the eighth round, Hirales delivered a second clean right hand to Francisco Leal's head, causing him to go down for a second time.
Francisco Leal was surrounded by medical personnel immediately after getting struck and was taken from the ring in a stretcher to a hospital in Cabo San Lucas. He reportedly slipped into a coma while being transported, and was ultimately transferred to San Diego. The boxer passed away in San Diego, which has raised the question by fans if she should have been fighting after suffering from a brutal knockout in Mary 2012 from Russia's Evgeny Gradovich in the 10th round of a fight in San Antonio. The fight left Leal hospitalized and he proceeded to fight five more times after that incident.
"This hurts a lot," said promoter Fernando Beltran of Zanfer Promotions, according to ESPN. "We knew that Frankie Leal was a good kid, a great fighter, a warrior in and out of the ring. As a company we took responsibility and tried to save his life as much as humanly possible. Now we are united in the grief felt by his family and his boxing family. We will try to help, whatever is needed." Beltran added: "It hurts that this happened. Our prayers are with his family. We knew that Leal was a fine young man. We will try our best to support his family in this difficult time."
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