I read your post yesterday, a couple of times actually, and then once again this morning. I'll likely repeat some things that I've said before on this forum while responding.
My brothers and I were teenagers when we used to travel around NYS, boxing in one city, then the next. My oldest brother and I fought; our middle brother trained/ managed us. We were always fighting in the other guys' home towns. We were friends with most -- though definitely not all -- of the other fighters.
One night, a friend got beat to death in the ring. I remember, on the ride home, thinking, "Poor Frank!" But not making any connection between his brutal death and what I did. I hear some boxers today talk about that risk, but I know that no young man thinks it can happen to them .... and once you are able to make that connection, you simply have to bury it deeply away from your conscious mind.
I watched the Duk Koo Kim bout. It could have been prevented. The referee, Kim's corner, the ringside doctor, the commissioner ..... what the fuck were they thinking? Years later, watching a bout on tv, I told my sons that one fighter was going to die if the fight wasn't stopped. And he did. If I could see it, how could the ref et al not?
My middle brother despises the sport today, because of that brutality. Our older brother is a living corpse in a wheel chair; he recognizes me every so ften, and has some brief moments of clear thinking. But they are few and far between. I remember years ago, him calling me late one night, to say he was scared, because he knew the punches to the head were taking his mind away.
Tomorrow, I'll be making my monthly trip to a specialist, who monitors the damage boxing did to my central nervous system. In a week, I'll be on a new medication; after two weeks, I'll be hospitalized for at least a week. Just the opposite of my brother -- my mind is clear (well, pretty clear), but I am trapped inside a body that just doesn't work right. And there are nights when it is scary to think about what lies ahead.
Yeah, it's a brutal sport. I agree 100%. There are changes that can and should be made. But, all in all, I wouldn't change a thing about my life.
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