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Twenty-five years is a long time to carry a memoryWithin two years Mancini would lose his championship to unheralded Livingston Bramble and never again fight with the same unfettered aggressiveness he showed in the Kim fight.He would always deny that the Kim tragedy and his own retirement were related and in fact made two unsuccessful comebacks from his 1985 retirement to try to prove that point. But Arum saw the candle flicker and die out in Mancini up close that afternoon in Las Vegas."He was never the same," said Arum, who promoted all of Mancini's major fights. "He didn't have the same zip, the same enthusiasm. He didn't have the same zest for fighting."Mancini was not the only person who asked hard questions about what the next step should be. Arum called for boxing to be suspended for several months while a blue ribbon committee studied how to make an inherently dangerous activity safer.The WBC immediately cut the length of world title fights from the traditional 15 rounds to 12, claiming a study had revealed most fighters were more severely injured during those final three rounds. It was a stance which, if taken sooner, would have altered the history of the sport, for many great victories were decided in those "championship rounds." Had Leonard's first fight with Thomas Hearns been a 12-round battle, it is Hearns' hand that would have been raised. Had Rocky Marciano's first fight with Jersey Joe Walcott been a 12-round affair rather than 15, he would not have retired as the only undefeated heavyweight champion in boxing history.
