Female boxer gets shot by father right before title fight
Rola El-Halabi, an undefeated 25-year-old German prizefighter, was prepping to fight Irma Balijagic Adler of Bosnia for the IBF lightweight title Friday night when her 44-year-old stepdad, Roy El-Halabi, shot her in the hand, knee and feet.
He also shot two security guards before cops overpowered him and arrested him, Berlin police said. The three were taken to a hospital for surgery. Doctors said that the fighter's injuries were not life-threatening but could end her career.
"Her operation went smoothly, but the shots were intended to end her career and it seems almost certain that will happen," her promoter Malte Mueller-Michaelis told Australia's Herald Sun newspaper.
The two security guards were also said to be recovering.
The attack could have been a revenge hit because El-Halabi fired her stepdad from his job as her manager in January, Berlin's Bild newspaper reported.
"I was with my coach and manager in the changing room when Dad rushed into the room, threatening us with a gun and shouted 'All out!," El-Halabi told the paper. "Then he shot me in the hand from three feet away, I cried and cried, begging him to put the gun away.
"He threatened to shoot himself, but he was too cowardly," she said. "He took his time aiming and shot me in the knee, then in my right foot."
I wonder what all the other fathers in the world are going to do with themselves now that Best Father of the Year 2011 has been wrapped up so convincingly. Rola was 11-0 (6 KOs) with two belts and was fighting for the IBF Lightweight championship the night her dick of a father decided he was going to end her career.