Boxer Hugo Santillan dies from injuries sustained in the ring

Argentinian boxer Hugo Santillan died Thursday from injuries he sustained five days earlier in a bout with Eduardo Abreu. He was 23.

Santillan was a super lightweight with a record of 19-6-2, including eight wins by knockout.

“The World Boxing Council and its President, Mauricio Sulaimán Saldívar, send Hugo’s family and friends their deepest condolences, at this time of deepest grief,” the WBC said in a statement. “Rest in peace Dear Champion.”

According to reports, Santillan’s nose started to bleed during the fourth round of his match Saturday in Buenos Aires.

But the boxer, known as Dinamita (Dynamite), kept fighting. By the end of the bout, which was ruled a draw, Santillan’s face was covered in blood. He fainted while the result was being announced and was rushed to the hospital.

“Upon admission to the hospital, he had successive kidney failure and he did not come out of his coma,” Graciela Olocco, a physician with the Hospital Agudos San Felipe, said in a statement Thursday. “He had swelling of his brain and he never recovered consciousness. The swelling continued to worsen and it affected the functioning of the rest of his organs.”

Olocco said Santillan underwent surgery for a blood clot in his brain and suffered cardiorespiratory failure twice before dying of cardiac arrest at 12:35 a.m. local time.

Santillan is the second professional boxer this week to die of injuries sustained in the ring. Russian boxer Maxim Dadashev died Tuesday after suffering a brain injury in a fight last week. He was 28.