SAN ANTONIO — Oscar Diaz, a former welterweight boxing champion whose career ended when he sustained a debilitating brain injury in a fight nearly seven years ago, has died. He was 32.
The Bexar County Medical Examiner's Office confirmed that Diaz died Thursday. The agency had yet to determine a cause of death Friday.
Diaz was in a coma for two months and spent seven months in a hospital after collapsing before the 11th round of a nationally televised USBA welterweight championship fight against Delvin Rodriguez in 2008. Diaz was 25 at the time.
After emergency brain surgery, doctors were unsure how Diaz would recover. His brother, Fernando Diaz, told the San Antonio Express-News recently that Diaz had been living in a San Antonio nursing home and could not walk on his own.
