Suffering From Blackouts
After boxing Gunboat Steves (he had previously boxed against him on February 28, 1957) in Holyoke, Massachusetts on March 17, 1958, he started to suffer from severe headaches. On that day, he was knocked out by Joe Devlin in every round. After the fight he passed out and was taken to Boston City Hospital where he remained in a coma until June 1958. This was his last professional boxing match.
In September 1964 after returning to the ring and fighting Pineapple Stevenson, he blacked out while fighting, and woke up in the hospital again. During that match he had put Pineapple Stevenson in a coma. Anthony himself started to suffer from extremely bad migraines, nausea, blurry vision with the inability to focus, and temporary mood swings that changed his behavior. It is unknown if he sought professional rehabilitation at a hospital to help these symptoms that plagued him. He told to a friend, "I thought my life was over when I couldn't fight anymore. I was filled with self pity, I started drinking again and I got into trouble." It is also thought that not being able to box anymore caused him sever depression which brought him to start drinking heavily and becoming incapacitated with alcohol on a regular basis.
Out of 25 matches he successfully won 15, although never was able to obtain the welterweight championship belt as it was not available to him the first time and lost it in 1958, lost two matches and was disqualified from one.
Read more about this topic: Anthony Veranis
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