His death sparked reforms aimed at better protecting the health of boxers, including reducing the number of rounds in championship bouts from 15 to 12.

Kim was born in Gangwon Province, South Korea, 100 miles east of Seoul, the youngest of five children.

[4] Kim was lightly regarded by the US boxing establishment,[5] but not by Ray Mancini, who believed the fight would be a "war".

[1] Mancini and Kim met in an arena outside Caesars Palace on November 13, 1982 (the night after Aaron Pryor defeated Alexis Argüello).

Kim managed to rise unsteadily to his feet, but referee Richard Green stopped the fight and Mancini was declared the winner by TKO nineteen seconds into the 14th round.

[3] Ralph Wiley of Sports Illustrated, covering the fight, would later recall Kim pulling himself up the ropes as he was dying as "one of the greatest physical feats I had ever witnessed".

[1] Minutes after the fight was over, Kim collapsed into a coma and was removed from the Caesars Palace arena on a stretcher and taken to the Desert Springs Hospital.

[citation needed] Kim's mother flew from South Korea to Las Vegas to be with her son before the life support equipment was turned off.

[9] Kim left behind a fiancée, Lee Young-mee, despite rules against South Korean boxers having girlfriends.

[1][10] The Nevada State Athletic Commission proposed a series of rule changes as a result, announcing it before a December 10 match between Michael Dokes and Mike Weaver that would in itself be disputed because of what officials were informed before the fight.

As one boxing leader put it, "A fighter's check-ups before fights used to consist of blood pressure and heartbeat checks before 1982.

"[12] Champion is a 2002 South Korean film about the life and career of Kim, played by Yu Oh-seong.

[15] The San Francisco-based band Sun Kil Moon's first album, Ghosts of the Great Highway, includes a fifteen-minute track titled "Duk Koo Kim" which references the Mancini fight.