PICTURES: CONTENDER FIGHT GALLERY
More than one month after Contender boxer Najai Turpin committed suicide in his hometown of Philadelphia, the fighters he befriended while filming "The Contender" are still in shock that he took his own life.
“I'm still surprised,” Ishe Smith told me in an interview Wednesday. “To this day, I still haven't let it rest in my soul that he killed himself. I'm still confused. I still think somebody killed him... I mean, he was a quiet guy. I know he didn't befriend a lot of people. But he talked a lot to me and I was very close to him so it's very shocking.”
Ishe said Najia’s motivation for living was his daughter. "He loved his daughter and he loved life," Ishe said. "He was doing everything for his daughter. I mean to me, I was upset with him like 'Why did you kill yourself?'"
But Ahmed Kaddour, who was Najai's roommate during the filming of the show, says he suspected that something wasn't right with Najai.
"When he was there, he would sleep in the closet," Kaddour said. "Other times, when I would wake up in the middle of the night to get something to drink, he was sleeping in the kitchen. That guy was funny. On the show everybody got to know him, but I was probably the one who got to know him best. We talked together sometimes in the night. He wasn't normal. I don't know."
Boxer Peter Manfredo says Sunday’s episode of the Contender -- which showed Manfredo getting a second chance to compete on the show after being eliminated on the first episode -- was a bitter-sweet hour to watch. The episode may have marked his own return to the competition, but it also dealt with Najai’s death.
"I lost a friend," Manfredo said.
“I really couldn't believe it when I heard. [One of the boxers on the show called me]. He usually finds out all of the information before us. He called me and he said 'Did you hear what happened?' He said 'Najai killed himself.' I said ‘What?’ I couldn't believe it. My phone almost dropped. I couldn't believe that he would kill himself. He was such a talented fighter. He was a good kid. He wouldn't say anything bad about anybody. I just didn't want to believe it."
Peter revealed that most of the fighters attended Najai’s funeral in Pennsylvania.
"It was sad. You see him in the coffin, open casket. It was just an extremely sad day. It was a loss for not just his family but for the boxing world, because the kid was a great boxer."
