Anytime the subject of boxers and drugs come up, I can’t help but think of another angeleno who was a very promising boxer in the early 1950s. Keeny Teran: Everybody in the boxing community back in the golden age of Los Angeles boxing thought Keeny was going to be a world champion. Keeny’s boxing career was in high gear when he was upset by Tommy Umeda at the Olympic Auditorium. Within days of his upset loss the newspapers broke the news that Keeny was a junkie. He admitted to have been using heroin since he was about 12 years old. After spending some time up in the mountains (Big Bear) trying to clean himself up he resumed his career, but he was never the same fighter again. Keeny died around 1995 of cancer, he was in his mid-60s.
