Boxer Antwun Echols, known as ‘Kid Dynamite,’ dies in Iowa at age 51
FILE - North American Boxing Federation super middleweight champion Antwun Echols is hoisted after defeating Richard Grant during the third round Saturday, Aug. 3, 2002, in Phoenix. Echols, who twice lost to Bernard Hopkins in title fights, has died in Iowa. Echols, known as “Kid Dynamite” because of his powerful punch, died Sunday, July 2, 2023, in Davenport, his former trainer, Leonard Overstreet Sr., told the Quad-City Times. He was 52. (AP Photo/Darryl Webb, File)
DAVENPORT, Iowa (AP) — Antwun Echols, a boxer who twice lost to Bernard Hopkins in title fights, has died in Iowa. He was 51.
Echols, known as “Kid Dynamite” because of his powerful punch, died Sunday in Davenport of complications from diabetes, according to his daughter, Antwunette Echols.
Echols was born in Memphis, Tennessee, on Dec. 4, 1971, and later moved to Iowa, where he got his boxing training.
He fought Hopkins twice for the International Boxing Federation middleweight title, with Hopkins winning by unanimous decision in 1999 and by technical knockout a year later. In 2003, Echols lost by unanimous decision to Anthony Mundine for the vacant WBA super middleweight title.
He finished with a 32-22-4 record, though many of those losses were at the end of his career. The Quad-City Times said Echols was 22-1-1 when he first faced Hopkins.
Davenport Boxing Club operator Patrick Pena said Echols had been planning to open his own gym.