Boxers With Asthma

Discussion in 'Classic Boxing Forum' started by SixesAndSevens, Oct 16, 2024.


  1. SixesAndSevens

    SixesAndSevens Gator Wrestler Extraordinaire Full Member

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    I'm sure we've all heard stories about guys like Donovan Ruddock or Shannon Briggs having asthma and having to fight through it in-ring (Briggs' claims are more believable than Ruddock's), but who are some other fighters you know to have or have had asthma? I learned a month or two ago that Gerrie Coetzee had it from watching one of his pre-fight interviews (I think it was from either the Page or Dokes match) that he had it, and I've also read that former Super Middleweight title challenger Nicky Piper had it, too.
     
  2. Ney

    Ney Boxing Junkie Full Member

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    Can’t be that serious if you’re able to climb as high as these guys did. My sister has mild asthma now, but when I was a kid in the early ’90’s, we used to have to hook her up to this machine - it looked ancient, even by the standards of that time. Great big steel box, to keep her from keeling over. She could hardly walk around the house when things were bad.
     
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  3. SixesAndSevens

    SixesAndSevens Gator Wrestler Extraordinaire Full Member

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    People take it differently. Asthma can't "go away" or anything like that, but it can be mended depending on your own experience with it.
     
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  4. Journeyman92

    Journeyman92 Barrios is a bandit robber - Psalm 144:1 Full Member

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    I have asthma it’s minor but that’s what the doctor says. I have better cardio than a lot of people but maybe it just means my ceiling is lower? I don’t know. Ruddock and Briggs issue might just be tension, winging hard shots all night and being really big they’re both like 6ft3 240lbs or so.
     
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  5. Boxed Ears

    Boxed Ears this my daddy's account (RIP daddy) Full Member

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    I think we can all agree that Aston "Asthma Boy" Martin was noteworthy. Because that was a very bad nickname.
     
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  6. Scratch

    Scratch Active Member Full Member

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    More recently asthma has proven quite the boon for athletes one understands.

    The Tour De France for instance is apparently swimming in 'em.
     
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  7. Saintpat

    Saintpat Obsessed with Boxing Full Member

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    Interesting wording as it’s quite common in world-class swimming — or was when Olympic level swimmers could get TUEs (thereaputic use exemptions) to use PEDs for it. They could expand their ability to intake oxygen with the right drugs that were created to treat asthma, so their MDs *wink wink nod nod* would diagnose them as asthmatic. Go back to 1996 or so and you’ll see a lot of top swimmers had ‘how he/she bravely overcame asthma to become a medalist’ stories that were really cover for ‘how he/she cheated like hell to get a medal.’
     
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  8. Journeyman92

    Journeyman92 Barrios is a bandit robber - Psalm 144:1 Full Member

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    I believe Aaron Pryor was using asthma medication in the black bottle according to the rumours.
     
  9. FrankinDallas

    FrankinDallas FRANKINAUSTIN

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    I had severe asthma partially due to allergies until my late 50's. Then it magically went away. After years of wheezing and puffing various devices I now have zero symptoms of asthma.
     
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