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Wednesday, February 16
 
Board resists Norris' return to ring

Associated Press

LAS VEGAS -- Former world champion Terry Norris lost a bid to get a new boxing license after Nevada officials expressed concern about his speech and the possibility he might have brain damage.

Norris, who retired after being stopped in the ninth round by Laurent Boudouaini in a WBA super welterweight title bout Nov. 30, 1998, has been training for a possible return to the ring.

The Nevada Athletic Commission, however, voted 5-0 Tuesday to deny him a boxing license.

"We believe there is evidence of chronic brain injury," commission vice chairman Lorenzo Fertitta said.

The 32-year-old Norris, who appeared before the commission along with his former manager, Joe Sayatovich, to ask for the license, said he had slurred speech "before I started fighting."

"I think I'm fine," he said.

But Flip Homansky, chairman of the commission's medical advisory board, said Norris was putting himself in danger by trying to fight again.

"He could be the best athlete in the world," Homansky said. "You put him in that ring and let him take more blows, he is a time bomb. The potential is very great that he could develop the classic punch-drunk syndrome, or Pugilista Dementia."

Sayatovich asked the commission to at least grant Norris a conditional license and judge his physical condition based on a tuneup fight.

Sayatovich said if the commission didn't like what it saw in the tuneup fight, it could "pull his license."

Sayatovich said Norris has been training and had a chance to fight on the undercard of the David Reid-Felix Trinidad fight March 3 at Caesars Palace.

But the commission did not go along with that suggestion.

"We will be really criminal if we let that happen the way he is now," said commission chairman, Dr. Elias Ghanem. "I would like to see his speech go back to normal."

Sayatovich said Norris is difficult to understand because of a "lazy speech syndrome."

But commission executive director Marc Ratner played a tape of a 1994 television interview of Norris, and he did not have slurred speech at that time.

Margaret Goodman, a commission physician, said there were some irregularities in Norris' neuropsychological test, but an MRI, EEG and general neurological exam were normal.

"The most important objective test is the documentation of the deterioration of his speech," Goodman said.

Norris lost his last three fights and was knocked out in two of them.

After the vote, Norris shook hands with all five commissioners and both doctors who had advised against his licensing.

"I think it is wrong," Norris told reporters. "I have always spoke this way. My speech has always been lazy."




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