Your passion for the sport and ring tragedies...

The day I watch a fight where a fighter dies as a result, may be the day I quit watching.

I felt awful after watching the Eubank/Blackwell fight.

I despise street fighting. I hate those viral street knockout videos. I’m the least confrontational person you will ever meet, but I love boxing. I don’t really know why.

I can’t disagree with those who refer to boxing as human c0ckfighting. They are correct.

 

I watch old boxing because it is history. I avoid watching fights from the past that ended tragically. I've never sat through Griffith-Paret or Moore-Ramos for that reason.

I've watched fights live (on TV anyway) that ended in tragedy or at least life-changing injury (Eubank-Watson and Benn-McCellan). It would be odd if you didn't examine your conscience after those sort of fights.

But as long as boxing exists, that will be an inevitable hazard. If someone decides to walk away from that, I don't blame them. I've been close on occasions myself.

 

fighters have so much pride and investment that it is hard for them to say they have had enough. It has to be up to the trainers and corner and ref. to be able to throw that towel in when there has been enough. They have to speak for the fighter. Buddy did well. I feel so bad for the Dadashev's family and friends. I think the key to the issue is corner people. We cannot expect the fighters to say I want out. They have a lot of pride. In this case Buddy did well. I have seen many times when fighters were being beaten up and they could not see well with swelling and bloody and the ref or corner stops it and the fighter says no no no.. but their face says "thank god" . Barkley against Toney. He said no, but he was not really protesting it. So a fighter will not say I want out sometimes because of pride. Someone has to help him. Rest in peace to his young man. All the best to his family.

 

I completely identify with that. I'm exactly the same, the most unlikely boxing fan you could ever meet.

 

Very true. The cornermen and referees have to be there to protect fighters against their worst instincts.

No blame attached to Buddy McGirt, though. He did the right thing and couldn't have done more to protect his fighter: https://www.badlefthook.com/2019/7/23/20707279/buddy-mcgirt-talks-death-of-maxim-dadashev

 

Buddy must be hurting. That is a tough loss.

 

I've been saying this for a while. The sport needs a huge cultural shift regarding unnecessary punishment, and I think it has to start with corners intervening far more often and a lot sooner when their fighters are getting beat down and don't seem to have much of a chance of prevailing. I would like to see this in all fights but specially non-title fights and bouts where the fighter getting punished doesn't have fight-altering power. I don't have any regard for the fans who enjoy seeing a hopeless fighter get beaten down round after round, let alone the fake macho types who whine when a thoroughly-beaten boxer or his corner ends the fight before being beaten unconscious or injured more seriously. I'm fine with missing out on the heroic Gatti moments, when a boxer climbs off the deck to win his match after sustaining a face-altering, brain scrambling beatdown if it's going to save boxer's lives and give them better quality of life post-boxing.

 

I agree good post. The corner has to be the fighters voice. Someone does. The fighter cannot be expected to say he wants out when he is in the fight.

 

I feel for the people like McGirt and Matias who are left with this death in their memory, not because of anything they did in particular, but because boxing is a harsh sport for hard people, and it exacts a terrible toll at times. The people who live on after a death in the ring suffer as well, and I can't fathom how hard it is for them to carry on in the sport after something like this.

Through the history of the sport, deaths and serious injuries in the ring have led to changes to hopefully work towards lowering the chances of future incidents, back to Jack Broughton's formation of Broughton's rules, to the lowering of title rounds from 15 to 12 after Mancini-Kim. Hopefully there's some serious thought looking again into some ways to protect the fighters after this. I don't have the answers, but I hope that some more intelligent, informed and connected people can come up with some. Boxing will never be fully sanitized as long as it's around, in any sport centered around violent contact, there will be injury, there will be tragedy. But those who can do something more to help reduce those elements should certainly do so, as much as reasonably possible.

 

As I said before, I don't get what the alternative is for the people who want to see it banned. It won't go away, it will then just be less regulated which could be even scarier. For thousands of years people have wanted to see who the toughest SOB out there is, and some are willing to step up to prove they are. Is that somehow going to change because boxing in banned? It won't imo, as I believe it's inevitable that some people will always push the limits of their body for sport/pride. Long before there was money involved in the sport, people did it for pride and recognition, they are the types that have it in their DNA to do, just like adrenaline junkies in other extreme sports. So unless we're going all big brother on society, how would one even try and stop the ones who have it them to push their body to the limits? Just don't see it happening. I see an overreaction where this big movement calls for boxing to be banned, and it's rushed through after a tragic death, and then it just goes underground.... and what was solved then?

 

I used to be into rock climbing in a big way. Proper hair raising stuff like trad climbing, and deep water soloing. Two of my fiends took really bad falls, and broke their spines, literally within a month of each other. One of them had to spend a year learning to walk again. At that point I decided that I was getting too old for the sport. An event like that can really make you rethink what you are doing, and whether your involvement in the sport is ultimately selfish, and unfair to your family!

 

I have a feeling that Deontay Wilder might end up causing a tragedy in the ring.

He is using an alter ego to avoid responsibility for his actions in the ring, and often not fighting the best opposition.

He is forging dangerous weapons there!