Warren sets up brain-scan fund

Boxing

Frank Warren is to set up a trust fund entitled the Murray Stone Fund, in memory of the last two boxers to die in a British ring, to finance a sophisticated Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) scan for every fighter in Britain, following the news that the teenage flyweight, Marvin Corpuz, has become the second Filipino boxer to die within a week after a bout in the southern Philippines.

The scans, which are more revealing than the current CT scans, cost around pounds 500 each and, with approximately 800 professional boxers presently performing on the British circuit, the move will be expensive, but Warren is willing to take a lead by underwriting the scheme for the next year. The British Board of Control is set to introduce compulsory MRI scans this week.

Warren promoted James Murray's tragic British bantamweight title fight against Drew Docherty in Glasgow, 18 months after the death of Bradley Stone in a British super-featherweight championship bout in London.

Warren said: "I'm being realistic, I don't think there's a lot you can do regarding death and what happens in the ring. They are the tragedies in the sport, as indeed other sports have tragedies. MRI scans are very expensive. It's OK for well-known fighters and fighters' well-known managers, but the other 80 per cent find it very difficult and can't afford it.

"The setting-up of our fund will give the Board a year, at least, to work out how they will fund the future - and if we have to give help in the future we will do it.

"As promoters, we feel we have a responsibility and, indeed, want to put something back into the sport and something to help the boxers. It is not a political situation. It is there for the benefit of the boxers," he said.