AJ concussed vs Ruiz

It’s old news mate. Headway (brain injury charity - I think) caused uproar about it last month when it first broke. McCracken then “clarified” his statement.

 

I knew from my living room 10k miles away that he was concussed- If Rob didn’t know whilst standing right in front of him, that would have been the real issue.

The truth is, Rob was faced with a massive dilemma. AJ is a walking multi million business - pulling him out has massive implications and on the flip side and more importantly his health is an stake. To make things even more complicated, although he was hurt, he was still landing on Ruiz and Rob was obviously hoping his head would clear.

In the end it was pretty much the best ending that could have happened in the circumstances. AJ wasn’t cleaned out cold, some say he quit, but at least he was on his feet and kept getting up.

 

I don’t think fighters carrying on with a concussion is anything new though. Froch would’ve been concusses in the first Groves fight. Parker after the headbutt from Whyte. Any time there is a pretty heavy knockdown there will be an element of concussion. It’s a dangerous sport. Unlike team sports you can’t just sub someone else in while you do a concussion assessment and then take them off and carry on the game. You just have to be honest about the risks, as long as the fighters know then what can you do.

If you pulled out every fighter with a suspected concussion during a fight the sport wouldn’t be the same. In the build up to fights, I do agree fighters should be pulled out, though.

 

You can make boxing safer but from a concussion point you can’t make it safe. If your chosen profession involves you being hit in the head by a professional fighter you are going to be susceptible to concussion. The comments from the likes of Headway are well intentioned but largely meaningless; all their roads lead to the sport being banned and none of us would accept that.

 

I totally get the concerns about concussion in sport, and there have been some positive steps taken to raise awareness and improve safety across many sports.

Boxing (along with other combat sports) is an anomaly though. Concussing your opponent is an integral part of the sport, rather than being an associated risk. In basic terms, if I punch someone in the face, it's with the intent to knock them out. If I bowl a bouncer at someone's head in cricket, it's to unsettle them to increase the chances of getting them out. Any concussion is a by-product of that, whereas in boxing it's the entire point of the exercise.

If you withdraw every fighter with suspected concussion, fights would be stopped very early and pretty much eliminates the chance of a fighter recovering from a heavy knockdown. It would seriously harm it as a spectacle, as sport as entertainment relies on comebacks, twists and turns.

Calling for greater concussion protocols in boxing is akin to calling for the sport to be banned.

 

Occasionally when a charity gets involved with sport it does help. A few years ago the RSPCA were integral with improvements to the Grand National fences and since then we've had few deaths. But that's an example where half of the competing partnership (the horse) had no say in the matter. As Momus states above, boxers willingly and knowingly want to punch each other in the head, hard and lots of times (unless they are Tyson Fury ). When Headway jumped on Mcracken's statement it made them look silly. If I was Mcracken the only response I would have made to Headway is "yeah, it's boxing".

 

To me it’s more about mitigating risks by having the equipment and medical support on site to deal with issues when things go awry. Plus not allowing fighters to fight who have been concussed in sparring. Ensuring fighters aren’t fighting too soon after a concussion and give the brain some time to recover, as happens in rugby.

There are improvements to be made without banning the sport/pulling a fighter out as soon as he takes a hard punch.

It is tragic that people are dying and getting life changing injuries in the ring. That’s a risk of the sport but It’s clear there are cumulative effects that carry over from fight to fight so can something more be done to look out for those signs?

 

If he quits he's got a glassjaw, no heart and he's a s**thouse.........

I hope attitudes towards being concussed, KO'd or just stopped change now, it's a brutal combat sport, it takes serious balls to get in there, even bigger balls to carry on when you're getting punched in the face by someone trains specifically to do that, there's no shame in being too hurt to carry on.

 

If they pull out every fighter with a concussion after every knockdown I think it'd be a great idea. F1 should be next, it'd be safer racing on an arcade simulator, why haven't they thought of that?

 

Concussions will always be around, it's literally what you are trying to when you punch. Although I would love for fighters to not be hurt (brain damage, mental issues), it's apart of the game. Either than the referee, Head trainers should be the ones making the call, they know their fighters better than anyone else and will see better than anyone else the damage their fighters are taking. If a trainer won't pull there fighter from taking too much damage (eg fighter clearly concussed or is not competing) then they should be under review from a boxing safety board or something.

 

The thing is joshua has the power to turn a fight with one punch. If he can hit you clean enough anyway. Its hard to call time on a fight when theres still that possibility he could turn it around. It was a good stoppage when it came. I think mcrackens big mistake was not instructing joshua to go for it earlier tho. Told him to box i think after ruiz knocked him down etc. Good instructions at that point. But it became clear from there he was getting beat down trying to box. At that point mcracken should have told him to fight ruiz and try back him up. Joshua ended up spending too long trying to box him.

 

They have. It's called xbox

 

Boxing would be a lot safer if we didn’t have brave cornermen.