NEW YORK -- Surrounded by the tools of boxing -- heavy bags and speed equipment -- the mother of Stephan Johnson recalled how she begged her son to quit the sport that would eventually take his life.

"I am heartbroken," Ira Johnson, the fighter's mother, said Tuesday. "I am devastated. He was my life."

She sat with family in a semicircle in a ring at Gleason's Gym in Brooklyn, where Johnson trained. The 31-year-old boxer collapsed during a fight in Atlantic City, N.J., on Nov. 20 and died Sunday.

Johnson's mother said she had asked her son to leave boxing, but he loved the sport too much for that.

"Stephan had a passion for boxing," she said. "He really loved boxing from the time he was a little kid, 5 years old -- loved it with all his heart.

"Whenever I talked to him about stopping, he said, 'Stop asking me to quit. I've never been in jail. I've never done drugs. Let me pursue my passion.' "

There was some question about why Johnson was in the ring in the first place. On April 14, he was knocked out by Fritz Vanderpool in a fight in Toronto and placed on medical suspension in Canada. He then was licensed following a physical exam in South Carolina and won a fight in Greenville, S.C., in August.

That set him up for a shot at USBA junior middleweight title in a bout against Paul Vaden on the undercard of an HBO show. The purse was $10,000.

Johnson seemed to be winning when he suddenly staggered back in the 10th round, took some punches and went down.

Fifteen days later, he was dead.

Elvis Phillips, who once managed Johnson and now manages Vaden, recalled visiting his ex-fighter when he trained in Gleason's for the title fight.

"He told me, `You know, you all are in trouble,"' the manager said. "He was right. We were."

Johnson's mother thought the tragedy could have been prevented.

"In the ring, when a fighter is in trouble, there should be qualified people to step in," she said. "If the referee and the people in his corner had stepped in at the appropriate time, when he stepped back, he'd be alive today."

Phillips presented Johnson's mother with the USBA belt.

Although he had not completed the post-knockout tests in Canada, Johnson underwent physicals before the South Carolina and New Jersey fights and was proclaimed fit to fight.

He also told friends and advisers he felt fine. However, he was still suspended in Canada because of the April knockout. But because he wasn't fighting there, it was not an issue.

"My understanding was he could have undergone 100 tests and not turned up anything," said Mercer Cook, a family spokesman. "We want to be positive. He loved boxing. We're not mad at anybody. We want to celebrate Stephan's life. He was one of the most positive people I ever met.

"The key is he had his dream. We asked him if he felt ready for this fight and he said yes. We were not the ones to tell Stephan not to do it.

"A lot of people live a long time. They never have a drink, never have a goal, never have a passion. Stephan had all that. Don't belittle what his passion was."

An hour after Johnson's family left Gleason's, the gym was alive. Fighters were shadow boxing and jumping rope -- pursuing their own passions.