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Kemal Kolenovic, a middleweight boxer, was killed outside a Bronx bar when he was struck by a car that drove onto the sidewalk, police and witnesses said.

Kolenovic was at a restaurant around 4 a.m. Sunday when several other men got into an argument about their native Eastern Europe. Kolenovic followed the men outside. According to his uncle, Kolenovic was trying to placate the other men.

One of the men involved in the quarrel got into a sport-utility vehicle and drove it onto the sidewalk, hitting Kolenovic. The driver then fled.

Kolenovic was 10-6-2, with five knockouts. He won his most recent fight, a first-round knockout last month of Ronny Glover at the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy in Kings Point, N.Y.

Kolenovic was an up-and-coming boxer who had immigrated from Montenegro. He was looking to fight at the Loews Paradise Theater in the Bronx this month, if he could find an opponent. Don Stewart, a boxing columnist for The Reading Eagle who saw him fight in May told the Times, "He was real charismatic in the ring. He would jump up and down in the corner before the rounds. He was a real tough little guy. It’s a boxing cliche, but he was a hard-luck journeyman who couldn’t get a break. He had fights that could have gone his way but didn’t for whatever reason."

He was 28