Boxer, 27, in coma after knockout as Floyd Mayweather’s uncle pays tribute and warns ‘anyone can lose their life’
BOXER Ardi Ndembo is still fighting for his life in an induced coma following a knockout loss in the ring.
Father-of-two Ndembo was competing in Team Combat League when he was stopped in a round by Nestor Santana.
TCL is a unique set up that has boxers in a squad box over one or two rounds with points earned in each and tallied up to decide the winning team.
Ndembo was representing Las Vegas Hustle when he was brutally KO’d by Miami Assassin’s Santana.
The heavyweight from Congo – who was 8-0 at the time – was left unconscious for several minutes after the bout.
He was later taken to hospital in Miami, where he remains now with his wife who was flown into Florida from Las Vegas.
Floyd Mayweather‘s uncle Jeff coaches for the Las Vegas side and paid tribute to Ndembo, who has a GoFundMe page to raise funds for his family.
Jeff told SunSport: “Boxing’s a sport where you grow up watching it and loving it, but there’s so much risk involved.
“Anyone can lose their life from boxing. When something like this happens, it wakes up the whole entire world.
“I don’t think boxing’s a bad sport because you can die in any sport.
“You drive a race car at 200mph, if it slides, you’re going to die too. You can die in an sport but boxing is a brutal sport.”
Jeff – a former super-featherweight champion – was at the fight and it barred a brutal reminder to the brutality of boxing – even over just a single round.
He said: “I was there. I didn’t think it would happen because this format is different to usual boxing.
“You have just one round, you’re only doing one round and I’d think almost anyone can survive one round.
“But in the heavyweight division in Combat League, someone always gets hurt or stopped so I mean it’s the heavyweight division.
“I don’t think there’s anything you can do to change it because it’s boxing and it’s just one round. One round of trying to do the best you can to win that round.
“That kinda takes away the brutality that everyone thinks boxing’s about but a person getting knocked out or getting hurt in one round is very rare. Especially something that tragic.”
