Arturo Gatti

Brazilian authorities detained the wife of former boxing champion Arturo Gatti and formally accused her Sunday of killing him at a posh seaside tourist resort. Police said 23-year-old Amanda Rodrigues was taken into custody after contradictions in her interrogation and presented a formal accusation against her. Prosecutors will later decide whether she will be charged.

Arturo Gatti's career came to a painful and bloody end when he was battered by Alfonso Gomez and stopped in the seventh round Saturday night. Fighting at 147 pounds proved to be too much for the two-time world champion, who failed in his bid to regain his place among boxing's top fighters. "\o7Hasta la vista\f7, baby," the 35-year-old Gatti told HBO as blood flowed from his cut lip. "I can't be taking this abuse anymore." A crowd of 9,648 looked on as Gomez punished his former idol.

An autopsy indicates former boxing champion Arturo Gatti may have committed suicide, been accidentally killed or murdered, according to a Brazilian newspaper that said Saturday it had obtained a copy of the coroner's initial findings. Police have said they are certain Gatti's 23-year-old wife strangled the boxer with her purse strap as he drunkenly slept July 11, but the autopsy report raises some doubts.

Floyd Mayweather Jr. exposed Arturo Gatti as the club fighter he said he was, giving the brawler a vicious beating Saturday night and taking the 140-pound World Boxing Council title when Gatti's corner called it quits after six rounds. Showing speed and power that Gatti had no answer for, Mayweather pounded him with shots to the body and head for six rounds before a stunned sellout crowd at Boardwalk Hall that had come to cheer on their local hero.

Arturo Gatti's face marks easily and he often looks like a loser. A loser, however, is what Gatti has been only once in a 27-fight pro career, although Tracy Patterson thinks Gatti lost twice. "I thought I won the first fight," Patterson said of the bout in which he lost the IBF junior lightweight title to Gatti on a close but unanimous decision Dec. 15 in Madison Square Garden.