Padilla’s Retirement Expected Over Clot

Zack Padilla, the Azusa-based junior-welterweight finally beginning to taste the financial rewards of championship-level boxing, has been told he has a small blood clot near his brain and apparently is ready to retire from the ring.

Padilla, the World Boxing Organization champion, was taken to a hospital Tuesday after suffering a dizzy spell during a sparring session with Shane Mosley.

Richie Sandoval, the former world bantamweight champion and current employee of Padilla’s promoter, Top Rank, Inc., talked to Padilla on Thursday and said the 31-year-old fighter is at home and taking the diagnosis seriously.

Sandoval said that Padilla, known for his blue-collar, swarming fight style before and after his three-year sabbatical in 1987-90, admitted that he had been experiencing continuous, severe headaches since his July 24 technical knockout of Juan LaPorte.

A spokesman for Top Rank said the company would not comment on the matter until it knew all the details, but that Padilla’s scheduled title defense on an Oct. 22 card in Hong Kong obviously will be canceled.