Quebec coroner revises report on Mexican boxer’s death after news investigation

MONTREAL — A media investigation uncovering troubling new medical information about a Mexican boxer who died after a 2021 knockout in Montreal has prompted a Quebec coroner to revise his report into her death.

The investigation broadcast this week by Radio-Canada revealed that 18-year-old Jeanette Guadeloupe Zacarias Zapata should not have been declared fit for the bout in Montreal because of brain injuries sustained in a previous knockout.

Zacarias Zapata suffered a traumatic brain injury after being knocked out by Quebec boxer Marie-Pier Houle on Aug. 28, 2021, and she died five days later.

In his initial 2023 report, coroner Jacques Ramsay found that Zacarias Zapata had not declared a likely concussion she suffered in Mexico 15 weeks before the Montreal fight.

But Ramsay says he did not know until Radio-Canada’s report that some of the scans submitted to the Quebec agency that oversees boxing carried the signature of a Mexican doctor who doesn’t exist.

In addition, Ramsay says a doctor for the boxing commission in Zacarias Zapata’s home city declared her fit to fight in Montreal despite seeing evidence of her previous injuries and ordering her 45 days of bed rest.

Ramsay’s new report calls on Quebec’s regulating agency and boxing promoters to take several measures to make boxing safer in the province, including requiring boxers who have suffered knockouts in a previous fight to provide post-fight medical reports.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 21, 2025.