Reflections on two (avoidable) ring tragedies?
-Of the 2, Paret's death struck the most. Words arent enough to describe how much pain Griffith would have felt killing childhood friend and neighbor Benny Paret. Emily hesitated forever in unleashing that deadly right hand. Referee Ruby Goldstein retired from the boxing world after the tragic incident...I bet it could have been worse had Benny Kid remained hanging for dear life. Gerald McLellan comes to mind for such mournful story. There's no living soul that wouldnt be moved.
Do you agree? How about a stricter regulation on drug testing and the use of special gloves as used by Golovkin and other KO artists?
- CAnt agree more. And that gloves too
1. Professional athletes should be required to take a monthly anti doping test. The test should require a fighter blood and urine samples. It is important for USADA or VADA to enforce the laws of performance enhancing drugs. Because every athlete should be on an even playing field. No athlete should unknowingly fight an opponent with a chemical advantage. It is safe to enforce the laws on steriod testing because a fighter safety is first.
2. Boxing gloves should be approved by the boxing commission. It is important for athletes to wear the same brand of boxing gloves for regulation purposes. It will prevent athletes from illgally stuffing there mits. Because a ref will be appointed by the boxing commission. To carefully overlook both pairs of the athletes gloves.
3. A boxer should be allowed to rest at least 15-20 weeks after every fight. It is important for an athlete to rest after there most recent fight. Because it will give the boxer enough of time to be fully healthy.
I think better safety prodecures have been introduced..like regular tests and brain scans..before fights.
In the 70s and 80s..over 80 boxers used to die from boxing related injuries..mostly brain damage...that number has decreased significantly...
you forgot zgorrez?
boxing cant avoid head injuries...
even if you regulate the use for bigger ring size and fluffier heavy cushioned gloves... it will turn boxing into a pillow throwing chicken run game yet still accident will still happen.. it can reduce the risk but at the same time reduce the fans... if that happens, boxing is dead
Thirty years ago this month, a ring tragedy occurred that was supposed to change modern professional boxing for the better to this day.
On November 13, 1983, then WBA lightweight champion Ray "Boom Boom" Mancini on a mandatory title defense, scored a brutal late round stoppage over South Korean top ranking contender Duk Koo Kim who was carried off the ring on stretcher unconscious and died later due to severe brain injury.
I saw that fight on TV and I was aghast at Kim corners' almost insane disregard of their boxer's condition from the time Kim started getting punished and pummeled by Mancini in the middle rounds until the time his face and head swelled from the welts and bruises before the start of the fateful 14th round. With arms wrapped around his body seemingly to help him rise up from his stool, his handlers prodded Kim on to the combat to face Mancini who by that time appeared to get stronger by the rounds despite the grueling pace and action. And soon enough, Mancini nailed him to the canvas with a murderous barrage. Sure enough, it was not akin to the fatal combo unleashed by Emile Griffith on the hapless Benny Paret back in 1962. But it was such as to separate Kim from his senses---for eternity.
Recriminations and soul searching followed in the wake of Kim's death. Many faulted the referee for not stopping the fight in the earlier rounds seeing how Kim despite his gameness was being routed by Mancini and how his physical damage has deteriorated by the round. But few faulted Kim's corner for their almost criminal neglect of their fighter's health and safety during the fight.
WBA reacted by cutting its world championship fights from 15 to 12 rounds which the WBC and later the IBF adopted and that has been the regulation since then to date.
The reduction in the number of rounds for major title fights was supposed to make boxing safer.
But just recently, we were witnesses to two more ring tragedies that happened not in scheduled 12 round but a pair of 10 round non-title fights.
They involved upcoming heavyweight fighter Magomed "Magoo" Abdusalamov and Mexican flyweight Frankie Leal.
Magoo is now lying in state of medically-induced coma after suffering brain injury in dropping a bruising decision to Cuban Mike Perez in the undercard of the Gennady Golovkin-Curtis Steven WBA middleweight title fight
Leal was not as "lucky" for he succumbed to head injuries three days after his lost fight against countryman Raul Hirales in Mexico last October 19.
Such ring tragedies could have been avoided or prevented had the fighters' corners or the referee have been cautious, conscientious and conscious of the damage their wards had been subjected to.
