Boxing is no ordinary sport. We affectionately, perhaps misleadingly call it the fight game, but boxing is anything but a game. If there was ever a sport that runs counter to commonly accepted notions of play, it is boxing. The risks are too great, the injuries too severe, the terms too stark to compare boxing to anything other than itself.
Statisticians tell us that skydiving, horse racing, and mountaineering are considerably more deadly than boxing. That may be so. But however many deaths occur in skydiving, horse racing, and mountaineering, the purpose of those sports, which may no more be sports than boxing is a sport, is not to disable one?s opponent, if only temporarily.
Boxing is unique in that way; and in other ways as well.
We use words to deflect and defuse, perhaps even to poeticize what take place in the ring. Stun, rock, wobble, starch, and ice are illustrative and any one of them can land one on Queer Street. But these are words as code, code as symbol, describing while not describing what?s occurring in the square circle, describing while not describing what is happening to the brain.
Magomed Abdusalamov, the 32-year-old heavyweight contender from Makhachkala, Russia, lies unconscious in Roosevelt Hospital?s ICU in a medically induced coma. He lost a decision to Mike Perez Saturday night at the Theater at Madison Square Garden after 10 frightfully grueling rounds. But he also almost lost his life.
Abdusalamov complained between rounds that he thought his nose was broken. The left side of his face swelled monstrously as the fight progressed. Those calling the action speculated ad nauseum as to whether his nose was broken, or whether it was his orbital bone or jaw. Perhaps the speculation was justified, inasmuch as silence is death under the circumstances. But it?s somewhat harder to justify, especially in retrospect, the jocular just-another-day-at-the-office tone of the remarks, which ring hollow in light of what transpired.
In addition to Abdusalamov?s broken nose (or orbital bone or jaw), at some point in the fight he also broke his left hand. Fighting with healthy hands is hard enough. Fighting with a broken hand is inconceivable. But Abdusalamov is a warrior through and through and he did what warriors do. He fought, through the pain, through hell and high water, in the hope of keeping his unbeaten record alive. As a result, he took a terrific beating in the process.
Those sitting ringside were at a disadvantage when it comes to determining Abdusalamov?s condition. Watching close-ups in his corner between rounds, one didn?t have to be a brain surgeon to know that something was seriously wrong. Hindsight is always 20/20, but if one tuned out the chatter to focus on the man himself, it was obvious that he was present but not present, there but not all there. Yet whenever the bell rang to start another round, he stood from his stool, walked to the center of the ring, ready to resume fighting at any and all cost.
After the fight Abdusalamov said, according to Nathan Lewkowicz, vice president of Sampson Boxing, that he ?wasn?t feeling good.? What that means is anybody?s guess. Did his head ache? Was he nauseas? Was he seeing double? Did he collapse in the dressing room? Lewkowicz said that Abdusalamov was going to the hospital anyway, to have his broken hand and nose examined, and it was at the hospital that the blood clot in his brain was diagnosed.
If that doesn?t add up, don?t be surprised. In boxing, truth as most people know it is an endangered species, if not altogether extinct. That is not to single out Lewkowicz. We are all accessories after the fact, except for those of us entrenched in the hurting business, who are accessories before the fact, whether we accept the facts, broadcast the facts, or are willing to recognize the facts as they are.
In order to save his life, Abdusalamov?s skull was opened and surgery performed to prevent his brain from swelling further. He is presumably in stable condition, but short of death, this is as serious as it gets.
The list of fighters who died doing what they did best is getting longer by the week. The list of those who survived the folly of their youth in one piece is by contrast very small. That, of course, is old news. Horror stories outnumber happy endings. But we need to say a prayer for Magomed Abdusalamov. And while we?re at it, we also need to pray for the sport boxing.
