On Monday afternoon Brayd Smith's parents made the gut-wrenching decision to turn off his life support machine.

FAIR-HAIRED and frail Brayd Smith walked on to one heavy right uppercut after another on Saturday night and his grandfather flinched with every blow.

“Hard fight mate, hard fight,” old Bradley Smith drawled to a fan standing next to him amid the raucous din at the Rumours International Convention Centre in Toowoomba where Brayd, the local hero of the Darling Downs boxing community, was losing badly against Filipino featherweight John Vincent Moralde.

As the 23-year-old law student and part-time boxer began to fade, Brayd’s mum Kerri could hardly bear to watch the eldest of her three sons, being hit again and again.

The 57kg Moralde was not landing huge knockout blows but his punches were fast, accurate and persistent, hitting home with sickening thuds on the fragile looking local boy.

In Brayd’s corner his father and trainer, Brendon Smith, told him to keep his hands up. Brendon had guided another Toowoomba boxer, Michael Katsidis, to a world title and Brayd was unbeaten with 12 consecutive wins going into Saturday night’s bout. He wanted to go the distance.

Brayd’s father and grandfather have boxing in their blood and devoted their lives to the fight game but on Monday Brayd lost his life to the toughest sport of all.

In a cruel twist that makes this death even more appalling, apart from some facial bruising Brayd appeared unharmed, even buoyant after the first loss of his career.

Interviewed in the ring immediately after the fight, he said the 10-round points loss was nothing more than a hiccup and that he’d be back better than ever.

“I knew from the first round how tough he was,” he said.

“He was a lot stronger than I expected but I landed a lot of big shots on him.

“A loss is a loss, but I’ll take good experience from it. I learnt a lot about myself tonight. I know now I can go 10 tough rounds with a quality opponent.”

Dr Cameron Carmody patched a cut beside Brayd’s right eye and Brayd’s girlfriend Kirstie Nicholls held an ice pack against his swollen cheekbones while he joked about the fight with mates scattered around his dressing room.

Brayd posed for a photo with the 20-year-old who had just beaten him and sat down to watch Olympian Luke Jackson win the Australian featherweight title in the main fight of the night.

Half an hour after that bout, Brayd started complaining of a severe headache.

Then he collapsed.

An ambulance was called and he was rushed to Toowoomba Hospital before being airlifted to Princess Alexandra Hospital in Brisbane early on Sunday morning.

Social media lit up in support as news filtered out that he was in an induced coma.

Already back in Manila, Moralde said he was praying for Brayd’s full recovery. But on Monday afternoon Brayd’s parents made the gut-wrenching decision to turn off his life support machine.

John Hogg, who was the official supervisor of the fight for the Queensland branch of the Australian National Boxing Federation, defended his organisation’s safety procedures, saying that two doctors were present and that the fighter “seemed fine” in the aftermath of the bout.

He pointed to the death of cricketer Phillip Hughes as proof that accidents can happen in any sport.

But that makes the nature of this awful death, delivered through the punches of another man, no less sickening.

In 1971 Gatton boxer Trevor Thornberry hovered close to death after being knocked out at Brisbane’s Festival Hall, his injuries compounded by the combination of severe dehydration and the heavy punches of his opponent Jackson McQuade. Thornberry survived but suffered a severe brain injury.

Yesterday Thornberry’s son, Noel, a former state boxing champion and trainer of world heavyweight title challenger Alex Leapai, sent his condolences to the Smith family, a fighting clan he has known all his life.

“Brayd was a lovely guy,” Thornberry said, “very quiet and modest. A real gentleman.”