The last thing I am is na?ve and I sure as hell am not trying to play the blame game here or lay a guilt trip on anyone (except myself)?
?Some people in boxing have been to see me, though not that many. I can?t help feeling I?ve been forgotten.??Paul Ingle
?This is so wrong. I thought [Frankie] Leal was going to die the night he fought Gradovich, but he kept going and going until this. RIP.??Bruce Trampler tweet, according to Fightnews.com
?There?s no quit in Tapia, maybe someone needs to quit for him.??Max Kellerman
?Boxing is the only sport in which the objective is to render blows to the head and body of the opponent so as the cause the opponent to be incapacitated.??Calvin Inalsingh, Head of the WBA medical advisory board
The last thing I am is na?ve and I sure as hell am not trying to play the blame game here or lay a guilt trip on anyone (except myself). There are enough stomach-turning hypocrites in and around the boxing establishment who can do that while sitting on their ?moralistic? high horses. This is about my moral culpability and if you can take something from it, all the better.
My affinity for boxing has endured through thick and thin?through scandals and tragedies, but it continues to be sorely strained by the tolerance of designated and/or professional losers like Marcus Rhode (35-49-1 with 42 KO losses), Bheki Moyo (0-64-2), Alexander Manea (0-54), Kristian Laight (7-166-7), and Gabor Balogh (3-109-5), all of whom are adept at bailing out of a fight at just the right time. Witnessing David Haye play the fans while playing on-again off-again games with his career doesn?t much help. And I am repulsed by a sport that allows an aging and bloated James Toney or a totally shot Marteze Logan, Shakka Moore, Ruben Williams or Jimmy LeBlanc to fight, or that permits Antwun Echols or Owen Beck to be served up as sacrificial lambs. Scheming and conspiring managers and promoters seem to rationalize this by saying, ?Sure, it?s wrong, but it?s the way it?s done and there is no other way.? See ?Naked Sport: Welcome to the Sewer?
I am taken back by a sport that makes halfhearted and token efforts to provide benefits for its combatants, provides a platform for the malfeasance of unqualified judges, celebrates out-of-shape referees who allow fights to last dangerously long, and tolerates writers who insult the intelligence of serious fans by trying to rationalize blatant conflicts of interest. I am especially nauseated by supposedly grown-up ?journalists? who engage in cyber catfights, petty jealousies, and shameless sycophantic behavior, overlooking the fact that the boxers are the primary story and that journalists are only there because humble and accommodating boxers are happy to talk to them and allow them entry into their lives. See: http://theboxingtribune.com/2012/09/when-boxing-writers-attack-magnos-monday-rant/
Ring Tragedies
On a more serious note, I am repelled by a sport that largely ignored the needless deaths of Frankie Leal in Mexico on October 26, 2013 and 17-year-old Tubagus Sakti in Jakarta on January 27, 2013. Assuming all precautions were in place, I can usually rationalize ring fatalities, but these two cannot be rationalized under any circumstances; they were both needless.
And like so many others, I was shaken by the terrible damage suffered in plain sight by Magomed Abdusalamov against Mike Perez on November 2, 2013. When these things happen, I am quick to talk the talk and say ?may the Lord help him? or ?May he R.I.P.? But do I stop to think about what these words really mean? Do I head over to the church, put some money in the box, light a candle, and kneel down and pray for Magomed; do I take the time to put a check in the mail to help Frankie?s family? Do I walk the walk?
I am deeply concerned when boxers are severely damaged. Men like Mago, Z Gorres, Victor Burgos (who thankfully seems to be doing better) and Oscar Diaz, but then, over a period of time, I tend to forget them. Will Oscar Diaz be forgotten like Paul Ingle? Maybe I assume that they will be all right, but that assumption is mostly fallacious. They will never be all right; they will never be as they once were. Not when they may have to relearn how to talk and walk; not when they have to undergo weeks and months of grueling therapy to re-strengthen and condition their muscles to help them regain the ability to do simple functional activities. Mago may be a case in point. He is reportedly undergoing rehab at the Helen Hayes Hospital in West Haverstraw, NY. He is no longer comatose, can open his eyes and can breathe on his own. Thankfully, the doctor said he is going to get better, but he will not be the same.
In this regard, watching a brave Glen Tapia take an unnecessary and scary beating in Atlantic City because others were ?braver? makes my moral compass wobble as it struggles to find the right direction.
Ring tragedies are a part of boxing; they are inevitable. But if I support and collude in something that inevitably leads to tragedy, it seems to me I will somehow need to reconcile my moral culpability in that collusion.
