Patrick Day, an articulate, educated, well-liked 27-year-old young man with a passion for boxing, died on Wednesday from brain injuries suffered in a ten-round KO loss four days earlier on the Aleksandr Usyk-Chazz Witherspoon undercard at Wintrust Arena in Chicago. And, like so often in the past (and three other times in the last four months or so), we?re left to try and push through the tragedy and try, at the very least, to come up with some sort of answers as to why it happened or how we can prevent future deaths from happening.
Boxing is a dangerous sport, but don?t let anyone tell you that the inherent risk can?t be reduced with some common sense and some basic human decency. True, there?s only so much that can be done to make boxing safe and there WILL be deaths no matter what, but signing up to be a boxer is not a death pact and most who know the sport understand the changes that need to be made to keep fighters as safe as humanly possible.
?They should have the weigh-ins the day of the fight,? trainer Buddy McGirt told Boxing Junkie/USA Today. McGirt?s own fighter, Maxim Dadashev, passed away from fight-related brain injuries just three months ago. ?Listen, guys don?t fight at their normal weight because they know they have 24 hours to put weight on. Make the weigh-ins the day of the fight. Then you would know that you can?t really dry out and then have an IV and fight five, six hours later.
?I think you?d have less injuries. Say you?re trying to make 140 when you should realistically be at 147. You weigh, say, 143 and think, ?I can get down to 140.? But you have to dehydrate yourself, and that?s not good for your body or your brain. I?m not a doctor, but I?m not an idiot either.?
And McGirt?s right. A return to same-day weigh-ins WOULD do a lot to help protect fighters.
In an article I wrote for this site back in July of 2017 (?Boxing Needs To Return To Same-Day Weigh-Ins?), I talked about the business history behind the so-called safety measure of day-BEFORE weigh-ins and outlined the realities of having, essentially, a cheat built into the fabric of the sport.
?Weight manipulation is a major issue in the sport?Fighters who routinely compete below their natural body weight are playing an ugly game with their insides, putting themselves at risk of serious injury by dehydrating themselves and then, in the day or so between weigh-in and the fight, quickly re-hydrating to a much higher weight.
The primary danger to the fighter is in the increased vulnerability of the brain, slow to rebuild its jelly-like protective layer due to dehydration.
However, the benefits of this weight-fixing are obvious. Take notice of Arturo Gatti, who nearly killed Joey Gamache in a 2000 junior welterweight bout when he entered the ring as a middleweight, putting on 19 pounds between weigh-in Friday afternoon and fight night Saturday. You could run through a seemingly endless list of fights completely altered by one boxer?s ability to manipulate the system and show up two, three, or even four weight classes larger than his opponent.
Almost everywhere, fighters are engaged in this legalized cheat. And in a sport where the most minute detail can make the difference between a win and a loss, it?s not hard to understand why a trainer and his fighter would enter into such an arrangement.
Really, it comes down to this?Do it and possibly get an advantage or don?t do it and be at a disadvantage against your opponent, who probably is playing the weight game.
In an era overrun by strength and conditioning coaches who shove nutritional supplements down fighters? throats and hook them up to all sorts of odd contraptions, the most basic rule of fighter safety is being ignored. They?d rather supplement the life force lost from (for instance) a 190 lb. man fighting at 168 lbs. than insist he not lose that life force in the first place. The logic is baffling. Almost like drilling a second hole in a sinking boat to let out the water from the first hole.
?nothing will change when there?s so much more incentive in trying to pull a boxing-supported fast one to get the upper hand on your opponent (and hoping to avoid the deadly consequences of trying to gain that upper hand).?
The reality is that fighters will continue to die as a consequence of this weight game being played. It?s not known whether Patrick Day?s death, specifically, was caused by weight-related issues, but many boxing deaths, if not most, are.
It?s time we stopped SAYING how much we care and started doing something about this. Bring back same-day weigh-ins.
