Denis Boytsov was at home with his wife when he suddenly became seriously ill. Paramedics could not save him, his father Nikolai Boytsov told Russian press. The cause was a detached blood clot.
He was 40.
The Center for Physical Culture and Sports Events of the Oryol region confirmed the death in a short statement.
“The road to recovery was long and hard, he did not give up until the end, but fate decided otherwise.”
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The funeral was held in the Oryol region on October 18, his father said.
The puncher David Price could not forget
The man known in Germany and Russia as the “Russian Tyson” finished with 36 wins, one defeat and 27 knockouts. His last fight came in 2015, in the weeks before the Berlin night that ended everything.
He had spent close to a decade undefeated and was ranked directly behind Wladimir Klitschko at heavyweight, according to ground.news, with a title fight in sight.
British heavyweight David Price, who had once sparred Boytsov in Germany, told Boxing News 24 and Daily Star Sport that the Russian was the hardest puncher he had ever stood in front of.
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“He only hit the top of my head, but he was a powerful puncher,” Price said.
What happened on the Berlin tracks
In May 2015, Boytsov was found unconscious between two Berlin stations with a fractured skull and a swollen brain. Doctors placed him in a medically induced coma for seven weeks.
How he came to be on the tracks has never been resolved. Berlin authorities ruled it an accident, a fall from the platform in front of a train. His family rejected that version.
In interviews with Russian press, his wife and relatives said Boytsov had received threats for years and suggested he had been attacked by a group of fellow Russians before being left on the rails, as modern.az reported. Price, speaking to Boxing News 24, was blunter still. Boytsov, he said, “got absolutely battered by a gang of Russian fellas and left for dead.”
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The circumstances were never clarified, as Swedish wire service Sweden Herald noted.
Eleven silent years
Boytsov never recovered the ability to walk or speak properly, and he never climbed back through the ropes. A fighter whose entire identity had been built on raw, almost indestructible power spent the next eleven years in and out of hospitals and rehabilitation.
Shortly before his death, he had undergone surgery to remove kidney stones. His brother Maxim said two of the stones had been left in place for a later procedure and that Denis had been discharged to recover at home.
He died in that home on the Saturday.
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