The Pendulum of Guilt Wobbles and Then Steadies

Not since that sweltering night at Madison Square Garden on June 16, 1983 when veteran referee Ernesto Magana suffered decision paralysis and allowed an aroused Roberto Duran to slaughter favored Davey Moore has boxing seen such global violence. And the Duran savagery occurred after Luis Resto (pictured on the right) used lethal weapons (doctored gloves) to mug Irish Billy Collins Jr. on the undercard, turning his face into purple pulp and leaving him with permanently blurred vision.

That night is remembered well because this writer was there and watching the mayhem in disbelief all the while thinking about his guilty pleasure. This wasn’t like sneaking into the refrigerator to glom some cheese at night while maintaining the pretense of a strict diet. No, this was shock and awe when it should have been shock and disgust. This was, plain and simple, guilty pleasure.

Fortunately, things settled down and I continued to enjoy boxing, but my pendulum of guilt did tilt ever-so-slightly.

And then came the “Harlem Hammer,” James Butler, who would sucker punch Richard Grant at the conclusion of their 10-round fight at the Roseland Ballroom in New York City in 2001. Watching Grant on the canvas with blood pouring out of his nose and mouth, and listening to the crowd chant “Lock him up, Lock him up,” was shock and total disgust. (It was a precursor to a subsequent and unimaginable tragedy involving Butler that I’d just as soon forget.)

The pendulum tilted more than slightly this time.

On April 13, 2009, a special edition of “Real Sports With Bryant Gumbel” investigated the 2009 deaths of Arturo Gatti, Vernon Forrest, and Alexis Arguello. No amount of investigating could bring them back, so what was the use? A suicide (Arguello), a murder (Forrest) and a suicide that may have actually been a murder (Gatti) made me wonder whether I was cultivating the right passion.

Adding to the grim picture, highly promising Irish boxer, Darren “Daz” Southerland, hanged himself later that year. He was suffering from depression. James DeGale said, “…my heart went to the floor when I heard. He was a big part of my Olympic medal journey and it is just terrible. I just do not know what to say except that he was a brilliant fighter, in fact an excellent fighter, and he was a gentleman outside the ring as well. He had an Olympic bronze medal and his whole life to look forward to. He had a great future, and my heart goes out to everyone who knew him.”

And unbeknownst to most, three Mexican fighters — Benjamin Flores, Marco Antonio Nazareth, and Francisco Rodriquez — died of brain injuries, two in the US and one in Mexico.

2009 was not a good year for boxing. Still, I stayed the course.

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“The only thing noble about this sport is the fighters and what they do when they get in the ring, inside the chamber of truth….That’s the only thing truthful about this sport. There’s nothing else truthful about it. There’s nothing else noble about it.”-Teddy Atlas

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However, my cynicism deepened after “Plaster Gate” when Antonio Margarito (one of my fallen favorites) was allowed two big paydays to fight Manny Pacquiao in 2010 and a rematch with Miguel Cotto in 2011 after a substance similar to plaster of Paris was found in his hand wraps prior to a previous fight. It was a crass case of revenue vs. morality, and morality never had a chance.

And speaking of bad, no amount can replace the damage done to Magomed Abdusalamov on November, 2013 in a savage fight with Mike Perez. To make a long and terribly sad story short, Mago is no longer self-reliant—and never will be.

Also, in 2013, I was repelled by a media that largely ignored the needless deaths of Frankie Leal in Mexico and 17-year-old Tubagus Sakti in Indonesia. Assuming all precautions were in place, I can usually rationalize ring fatalities, but these two, in my view, could not be rationalized under any circumstances; they were both needless.

Once promising Prichard Colon has been in a vegetative state ever since his battle with Terrel Williams in Fairfax, VA on October 17, 2015. Like Mago, he will never be self-reliant.

Oscar Diaz passed in 2015 seven years after he suffered a debilitating brain injury in a fight against Delvin Rodriquez. He was all but forgotten.

In 2017, featherweight boxer Daniel Franco suffered severe head injuries in his knockout loss to Jose Haro at the WinnaVegas Casino in Sloan, Iowa. This time the miracle came.

“I’m lucky to be talking to you right now. I’m lucky to wake up in the morning. I always knew boxing was a dangerous sport. I know that people can die in boxing. I knew that, but I didn’t think it would even be this close to happening to me because I was really good.” — Daniel Franco.

2019 has not been a good year for boxing. Two young warriors, Russian Maxim Dadashev and Argentinian Hugo Alfredo Santillán, died in the same week of injuries suffered in the ring. This shook the boxing world.

No miracles this time.

The weekend before last at the O2 Arena in London, Dereck Chisora perpetrated a sickening knockout of Artur Szpilka and David Allen was stretchered out after his bout with David Price.

No miracles needed—thankfully – but Szpilka needs to retire now.

 “The boxing ring… isn’t always pretty to look at, but we keep coming back for more, eager to participate, if only vicariously, in a ritual as old as the human race and as timeless as a clenched fist. That’s why boxing is still around and still welcome in many quarters, regardless of its frightening toll.”—Nigel Collins (ESPN Boxing, “How do we reconcile ring deaths?”, Jan. 17, 2013).

I’ll keep coming back.

Ted Sares is a lifetime member of Ring 10, and a member of Ring 4 and its Boxing Hall of Fame. He also is an Auxiliary Member of the Boxing Writers Association of America (BWAA). He is an active power lifter and Strongman competitor in the Master Class.

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