Lamar Parks was only days from fighting Gerald McClellan for the WBC middleweight title in this boxing capital when he abruptly pulled out of the March 1994 fight with what he said was a bad shoulder.
A few days earlier, the No. 1 contender had tried to pass off to Nevada boxing authorities a blood test for the AIDS virus taken by a friend who was wearing a necklace with Parks' "Kidfire" nickname.Nevada officials wouldn't bite. They refused the test, and Parks has never fought again.
"He had someone take a test for him in South Carolina and we refused to accept it," recalled Marc Ratner, director of the Nevada Athletic Commission. "He pulled out of the fight knowing we were going to test him if he came here."
Parks' former fiance died a few months later of AIDS-related complications, but not before telling a newspaper that Parks had given her the virus. Samantha Clark said Parks told her he had tested positive for the AIDS virus while in Florida training for the McClellan fight.
Had the fight been scheduled almost anywhere else in the country, Parks could have still fought. Only Nevada and a handful of other states require that boxers be tested for the AIDS virus, despite the violent nature of a sport in which blood is almost always spilled.
"It's a very sorry situation," promoter Bob Arum said Monday. "It's preposterous that in a sport like boxing that testing isn't mandatory. You should think of the other fighter first."
Although Tommy Morrison became only the second boxer to test positive for the AIDS virus since Nevada first began testing fighters in 1988, boxing officials believe other fighters who are HIV positive may simply choose to fight in states that don't require testing.
That includes most of the states that actively hold major fights, including New Jersey, New York, Florida, Texas and California.
The first boxer to test positive for HIV under Nevada's regulations went to California after his 1991 test. The boxer, a preliminary fighter with an 0-7 record, fought twice in California under an assumed name after failing the Nevada test.
More than 2,100 boxers have been tested in Nevada since the state first instituted its policy in 1988. All fighters, from four-round undercard boxers to champions like Mike Tyson, must submit to annual tests.
In Morrison's case, he hadn't been tested since 1993 in Nevada, the last time he fought in the state. He had been scheduled to fight in Phoenix a few weeks earlier, where testing is required, but pulled out of the bout.