By James Blears
Why oh why is it that boxers themselves are the last people to detect the warning signs and call it a day on their ring careers, so they can retain and cherish, rather than cling to their health and faculties?
Unlike victorious Roman Generals, few fighters have a slave on their chariot, charged with the specific duty of regularly whispering in their ear: “Remember you are mortal.”
Boxing does not yet have a seniors’ tour like golf or tennis, although it has had and does possess a number of fighters who have no business to be exchanging power shots with younger, stronger, quicker and fresher opponents. With most of them, the balance of experience against youth has already tangibly tipped out of their favor, even before they reach the scales And there’s sometimes an awful delayed neurological price to pay, and play out in later life. They’re picking up money, but also collecting a basketful of problems.
As James Toney so aptly quipped: “You play basketball, you play hockey, you play football, you play baseball- you don’t play boxing. This ain’t no game.”
The wonderful evergreen boxing scribe Reg Gutteridge of the London Evening Standard, describes how age was oozing out of every pore of “Ageless” Archie Moore, in his fateful and last but one ring encounter in 1962. His brash opponent and future superstar was young Cassius Clay, soon to be Muhammad Ali.
Depending on which version Archie’s birth certificate claims you believe, the sturdy old warrior was 47 years old, but he could have been pushing fifty. The Louisville lip was barely 21- young enough to have been Archie’s grandson!
The cocky youngster, who earlier in his career, had given Archie a broomstick back, when “The Mongoose” had instructed him to sweep up the main concourse of a grubby gym, could have wiped the floor with him, as early as the second round. But with the impervious pitiless impudence of youth via a witty ditty, he’d ordained that “Old Archie, will fall in four.” And so the agonizing one sided beating continued awhile… and then Moore!
Fate, however was kind to Archie, who retired and suffered few if any ill effects of a 30 year crackerjack ring career, packed with fireworks. It wasn’t anywhere near so accommodatingly benign to Muhammad Ali himself, or the arguably even more incredible Sugar Ray Robinson, who’d both scaled the rarified summit of Mount Olympus, with their immortal careers. They went on…and on… to develop Parkinson’s Syndrome. But there are so many others who’ve taken similar faltering footsteps….the three who particularly stick in my mind are Mickey Walker, Ezzard Charles and Jerry Quarry.
There are always exceptions to the laws of nature, which govern most of us mere mortals. Look at Roberto Duran’s career, which has spanned an awesome five decades. Big, and still hungry George Foreman, endured a savage beating to coax Michael Moorer into a split second mistake, which tempted him in too close, on to the wrong side of an anvil. It suspended our credibility, while stretching those famous red and blue trunks which had dusted the canvass years earlier in Zaire.
I recall interviewing a far less brash, but superbly talented Oscar de La Hoya at the outset of his glittering career.
At that time the Golden Boy from East LA, was a modest young man, with a great deal to be modestly ambitious about, financially. He confided that he wanted to win world titles at three different weights, become a millionaire and retire before the majority of his opponents were younger than him. Now with great riches and gaudy bauble sparkle of six world titles, what’s left to prove? Is he going to get badly pummeled like Joe Louis, or more recently like Sugar Ray Leonard? The Bernard Hopkins loss, would appear to be a timely warning?
According to Bob Arum, Oscar also has too many other outside interests to be able to devote an undivided 100 percent of his attention to boxing.
To be sure, every human being is different and some like Bernard Hopkins are truly exceptional even when they’ve had their first hair thinning brush with the big Four and O. Julio Cesar Chavez is clinging to past glories in the twilight of a wonderful career, maintaining himself in reasonable shape against younger opponents of a more modest caliber, to pick up a nest egg , rather than a mouse.
I firmly feel that boxing authorities should and must be much, much tougher in respect of and to the older participants. Medical exams and brain scans for them should be much stricter and done a lot more often. And the rules plus decisions should apply right across the board. One State, border line or different part of the world, should not contradict another. Riddick Bowe, who once got a lawyer to claim brain damage for him as so called mitigation in a trial, should be able to box anywhere or nowhere.
The one punch too soon, rather than one too late, must be rigorously applied to the older generation much more often, outside the ring as well as in it. So they are in proper physical and mental shape to productively enjoy the second half of their lives. How many families would second that?
One possible practical suggestion, would be to establish an official business and financial structure within the framework of the world of boxing, which could help, advise and wisely invest the hard earned money, which so often turns to quicksilver in the powerful hands of less than astute young athletes of the ring. So they can avoid a situation involving pushing middle age with little to show for the fruits of their labor.
Something should and must be done.
We owe it to themselves, ourselves and the sport we love.
