Australia - IT'S taken an absent-minded oldie to do what countless brutes couldn't; KO the career of Geelong boxing luminary Jimmy Tsitas.
Doctors have ruled out a planned eighth comeback for Tsitas, 42, after he shattered his pelvis in a motorcycle accident last week.
An elderly Geelong woman T-boned Tsitas' motorcycle with her car after she failed to give way at an intersection on Bacchus Marsh Road.
The force of the collision threw the middleweight through the car windshield.
Speaking from his hospital bed yesterday, Tsitas could see the irony in his misfortune.
"I've been hit by shovels, I've been hit with gloves - anything you can think of and nothing has stopped me until an old lady hit me," he said.
"It's bloody hard to believe but it's a fact."
He faces a year of intensive rehabilitation after surgery to insert metal plates in his hip.
Tsitas is now a boxing promoter and trainer at his Grovedale gym, but had been preparing for another return to the ring.
"It breaks my heart. Boxing is something that I love, it made me look good and feel good about myself - I'd walk down the street and people would yell out 'G'day Jim'.
"To be told that's all over is hard to come to terms with."
He said he holds no grudge against the woman who ended his career.
Rather, the experience has seen the pair forge a unique bond.
"She rang me up crying her guts out and said 'Can I come in to give you a cuddle?'," he said.
"No matter how tough I think I am, I was crying like a baby with her.
"We both went through a pretty big thing together and to be able to come out the other side is beautiful."
As a former Bandidos motorcycle club member, Tsitas has also had to dismiss rumours his injury was gang-related.
"It was a nice old lady in a car who hit me, there was nothing malicious about any of it," he said.
Tsitas has vowed to regain his mobility and continue training young boxers.
"This isn't the end of me, I'll be back in the paper again with the boys I take to the Australian championships," he said.
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