The National Football League, after years of dithering and denial, agreed to settle 4500 lawsuits by former players?
?Boxing is the only sport you can get your brain shook, your money took and your name in the undertaker book.??Joe Frazier
Washington, DC is as Washington, DC does, and what it does, no less than what it fails to do, often borders on the criminal. The denizens of DC are passionate about their crimes, but they are not crimes of passion. They are crimes of ideology. They are crimes of ambition. They are crimes of subterfuge.
In the kabuki theater of the governing class, politicians sometimes take positions that seem almost sane, and it appears that Senators Harry Reid and John McCain may have had a moment of clarity. We?ll have to wait and see if that moment has legs, or if it?s more grandstanding to get their names in the papers.
Reid and McCain, both of whom boxed when they were young, both of whom pretend they?re on opposite sides of the political spectrum, have found something on which they can agree. That something is that concussions are bad, and they have thrown their considerable weight behind a study quantifying how punches to the head affect the brain.
?If we don?t do this,? said McCain at a news conference yesterday, ?then I?m afraid that support for these incredible entertaining sports (boxing and MMA) will wane on the part of the American people. We owe it to the future of the sport, and we owe it to the future of the men and women who want to engage in it.
With $600,000 donated by Golden Boy Promotions, Top Rank, UFC, Viacom?s Bellator MMA, and Glory kickboxing, the Cleveland Clinic Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health will continue research to measure brain damage in professional fighters.
The National Football League, after years of dithering and denial, agreed to settle 4500 lawsuits by former players, in addition to biting the bullet by acknowledging that which has been known all along. The NFL has changed its rules, somewhat, and has put its money, or at least a small fraction of its money, where its mouth is, but not without a protracted legal fight. But at least it?s a start.
And now it?s boxing?s turn.
?I?ve fought a number of fights at a very low level,? Reid said. ?But I?ve judged hundreds of fights. I had the opportunity to judge a fight with the great Sugar Ray Robinson? As we all know the 150-200 fights he had really took their toll. We all know he ended up really sick.?
Jeffrey Cummings, medical director the Cleveland Clinic, said, ?Most head injury does not produce brain injury. But some head injuries produce a brain injury that starts a process that ends up in something that looks like Alzheimer?s disease.?
Bernard Hopkins is among the 400 fighters who have agreed to participate in the study.
?I want to be sitting in my old days saying that I played a part in the future,? he said. ?You train every day, sparring, pounding, day in and day out. The damage isn?t done by a blow in a fight but in the accumulation of damage in the gym.?
?As fighters, we don?t really think about the consequences as much,? said former MMA champion Michael Chandler, ?so we appreciate that there are people working behind the scenes for us. At the end of the day, I?m excited to become the best lightweight in the world, but I?m more excited to be able to play football with my kids one day.?
To add a bit of levity to the proceedings, Harry Reid said, ?I?ve had the good fortune of serving in Congress with John McCain since 1982, and I?ve suffered a few of the blows rendered by him. It was just a month or two ago when I ran into John right outside the elevators and he said, ?I?m going to go out on the floor and kick the shit out of you.? And I said, ?I would expect nothing less.??
Almost everybody laughed.
