Darrin Morris (June 15, 1966 – October 1, 2000) was an American super middleweight

boxer Boxer most commonly refers to: * Boxer (boxing), a competitor in the sport of boxing *Boxer (dog), a breed of dog Boxer or boxers may also refer to: Animal kingdom * Boxer crab * Boxer shrimp, a small group of decapod crustaceans * Boxer snipe ee ...

, nicknamed "The Mongoose". Morris was born in

Detroit Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at t ...

and died in

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. He once was a sparring partner for

Sugar Ray Leonard Ray Charles Leonard (born May 17, 1956), best known as "Sugar" Ray Leonard, is an American former professional boxer, motivational speaker, and occasional actor. Often regarded as one of the greatest boxers of all time, he competed professional ...

, and he achieved a professional record of 28-2-1 with 18 KOs. The

World Boxing Organization The World Boxing Organization (WBO) is an organization which sanctions professional boxing bouts. It is recognized by the International Boxing Hall of Fame (IBHOF) as one of the four major world championship groups, alongside the World Boxing ...

(WBO) twice moved Morris up in its super-middleweight rankings in 2001, despite the fact that he had died of HIV-related meningitis the previous October, aged 34. Morris was ranked #7 at the time of his death and #5 when the WBO discovered the error. WBO president Francisco Varcarcel said, "We obviously missed the fact that Darrin was dead. It is regrettable." One week after

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newspaper ''

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'' broke the story, one of the three men ranking the boxers, Gordon Volkman, still had not heard that Morris was dead. In addition, Morris had only fought once in the three years before his death, beating a boxer with only 17 wins out of 81 fights.

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* 1966 births 2000 deaths Boxers from Michigan Neurological disease deaths in Florida Infectious disease deaths in Florida Deaths from meningitis AIDS-related deaths in Florida American male boxers Super-middleweight boxers {{US-boxing-bio-stub