By Miguel Rivera

Italian boxer Christian Daghio, who was very popular in Thailand after moving there a decade ago, has passed away at the age of 49-years-old after suffering a bad knockout loss at the hands of Don Pareuang in twelfth round of their bout for the vacant WBC Asian Boxing Council silver light heavyweight title. 

At the time of the loss, Daghio was up on the cards at the Rangsit International Stadium in Rangsit, Thailand.

The fight was very brutal, with Don Pareuang finally putting Daghio down hard with several blows to the head. However, the Italian boxer got up to continue fighting and again received several hard punches, which prompted the referee to finally wave off the fight as Daghio was out of it. The referee quickly called fr medical attention.

The doctors went to the ring and immediately attended to Daghio, who was unconscious and taken quickly to the hospital. He spent several days in a coma with serious brain damage, until he died .

Daghio's brother, after leaving the hosputal, told local papers that his sibling went out exactly as he wanted to - "He died as he wanted to die, I do not regret it because he was like that, he said he wanted to fight until he was eighty years old, the ring was his life and he died as a champion."

Boxrec has Daghio's official record listed as 10-0 at the times of his loss, with all 10 of those wins by knockout.

But Daghio's bio indicates that he's had 31 boxing bouts, with no losses and 27 win by knockout.

While he started extremely late in boxing, he spent much of his career as a Muay Thai fighter. He had 189 fights in Muay Thai and won 145 of them - including several titles. He even entered the world of MMA, holding 5 bouts and winning 3.

In addition, as a part of the national team in Italy, Daghio won a world bronze and two European bronzes.