DOPE, MURDER & BOXING
Robert Quiroga
VIDEO OF QUIROGA-AKEEM FIGHT AT END OF STORY
San Francisco, CA– The first installment of Cocaine, Boxing, Thug Life, the Murders of Robert Quiroga and “Kid Akeem” Anifowoshe, brought back a lot of bad memories for people in boxing that knew both Akeem and Quiroga. A severely brain damaged Anifowoshe, 23-1, 20 KOs, died in 1993 attempting a comeback after deportation back to his native Nigeria. Before I go on, boxing did nothing for Akeem after he nearly died in that 1991 IBF title tilt with Quiroga. A broken young man in many ways, he turned to hustling Cocaine, for which he was busted and deported.
NIGHT ROBERT QUIROGA WAS MURDERED
Robert and some friends had been drinking at a San Antonio tavern for a few hours late one night in 2004. They then grabbed a case of beer and headed for a friends house. Once there, the partying continued and Quiroga started jamming a member of the Bandidos motorcycle gang, Robert Merla, because Merla stole a Scarface poster years earlier, taking it by threat of force. Felling humiliated, Merla left the party. He then lay in wait until Quiroga, who was drunk, exited the house some 15 minutes later.
ATTACKER STABBED QUIROGA SIX TIMES IN BACK!
At that point, Merla attacked Robert with a knife and stabbed him some 15 times, six times in the back and left him for dead. He would die a couple of hours later at a hospital. Quiroga was a local hero and legend of sorts. San Antonio was in shock, as were the hierarchy of the Bandidos gang. When it looked like Merla might skate, his ex-compatriots in the Bandidos turned on him and “allowed” another member to testify against Merla in another non-related homicide.
MERLA LAUGHED ABOUT KILLING ROBERT
Quiroga was not a Bandidos member, but he had a motorcycle and knew some members. By the group outing one of their own for a murder, thus assuring that Merla would never see the streets again, he pled guilty to both murders in exchange for 40 years in prison. What really riled me about the Gangland TV series episode on A & E that chronicled this, was Merla’s boasts, his bragging, even smiling about killing the then 33-year old Quiroga in November 2004.
HOW WAS AKEEM MURDERED YOU ASK?
I have written that Akeem died in the shower while training for a proposed fight, so how could I call it murder. After boxing left him with enough brain matter to sell pencils at maybe the bus station, Akeem was alive but dead. Forced to come back to the game that had nearly killed him once, because boxing kicked his broken soul to the curb. What boxing failed to do in 1991, it did in 1994 when Akeem died. Although personal accountability is brought into question, here the kid was so screwed up from boxing, he couldn’t make those decisions.
HERE IS THE 1991 FIGHT OF THE YEAR!
HORRID ENDING TO GREAT FIGHT
The end speaks for itself, Akeem collapses in the ring, Cocaine is found in his protective cup and he is history as a fighter. Quiroga would drop the title three defenses later to Julio Borboa (TKO 12) in January 1993. A comeback in 1995 ended in his losing a UD 8 to Ancee Gideon. Pikin’ as Robert was called, retired at 20-2, with 11 KOs.
Pedro Fernandez
COCAINE BOXING MURDER