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5 steps that can taken now to improve boxer safety
Posted November 18th 2008 at 10:45pm
By Margaret Goodman, M.D.Buzz up!
When I became a ring physician in 1994, I was naïve about the boxing business. But as I became more involved in the sport on a local and national level, the outright refusal by many officials to implement desperately needed changes to protect fighters and improve safety became suffocating.
Why the delay? Is it just naivete on the part of others? Or is safety often too complicated a distraction? And when is naivete merely blind ignorance?
While safety in sports like NASCAR and professional football has evolved, boxing safety has not, at least not sufficiently. Commissions concentrate on deflecting blame rather than ensuring that federal law is followed. Accountability simply doesn’t exist.
Let’s simplify the matter and start not with what we wish, but what we can change now to advance boxer protection. Five changes that could improve fighter safety:
1. Go back to same-day weigh-ins
If an athlete is well-conditioned, the timing of the weigh-in shouldn’t matter. For generations, the weigh-in took place the day of the fight. Boxers would step on a scale, drink a cup of water and step in the ring. But some of them came into a bout so dry they were unable to give a good performance. They often failed to replace essential fluids and therefore couldn’t address problems on a cellular level that resulted from dehydrating to make weight.
In the mid-1980s, the weigh-in was pushed back to 24-hours before a bout to address the dehydration issue. Many were optimistic this would be a springboard to educate fighters and trainers about the dangers of dehydration.
Unfortunately, the day-before-the-fight weigh-in has become an agent of unfairness contradictory to fighter safety. Contracts are too often based on earning power and not body size, meaning boxers are competing in weight classes in which they don’t belong. With many weigh-ins taking place more than 24 hours before the bout, fighters are not just replenishing water but actually gaining weight.
Same-day weigh-ins would force fighters to compete in a weight class where they belong. Also, if they would show up at the weigh-in (no more than 12 hours before the bout) dehydrated, they simply wouldn’t be cleared to fight.
The cost to return to same-day weigh-ins would be negligible. Over a short period of time, it would encourage fighters to compete in a weight class in which they belong. Fights would be fairer, and there would be less wear and tear on the fighter’s body. And, ultimately, healthy, well-hydrated fighters make for more exciting fights.
Boxing needs to admit its mistake and revert to same-day weigh-ins.
2. Weed out ineffective officials
Few jobs in sports are more sought after than a boxing referee, judge and physician. In most jurisdictions, impeccable judgment and years of experience are required. Still, the ability of officials varies widely, which means some of them repeatedly make mistakes that affect the integrity of the sport and the well being of the fighters.
Unfortunately, many commissions believe they have to rotate fights among officials purely for the sake of rotation. And some officials receive assignments because they are favored by certain commissioners, executive directors, promoters or sanctioning organizations. While it is important to give officials a chance to improve, officials who have proven to be inadequate should no longer be assigned.
I am a firm believer that if an official is not the best, he or she should not be working. Too much is at stake. Anything other than the best performance should not be tolerated.
3. Institute uniform medical requirements and drug testing
This is such an obvious point I almost feel silly bringing it up. But then why does it not exist?
Regardless of a commission’s vigilance, it is impossible to determine whether a fighter is fit to box without adequate medical testing. To this day, many commissions rationalize they will lose fight cards if they expand their medical requirements. As a result, a good percentage of jurisdictions require little beyond a yearly physical. Too few mandate yearly hepatitis and HIV testing, and even fewer require routine screens for drugs of abuse and anabolic steroids. As a result, promoters often shop for venues based on the lack of medical requirements.
Brain scans (either MRI or CT) should be performed everywhere, yet they remain ordered by only a few commissions. Once again, cost is sited as an excuse, but California, Nevada, New Jersey, and Connecticut all host many low-profile cards and the fighters who travel there are required to undergo such testing.
Every jurisdiction should make certain a fighter is fit to box, and that can only be accomplished by maximum – and uniform -- medical and drug testing.
4. Require trainers to do their part to protect boxers
There is so much more to being a great trainer than holding the mitts or counseling a protege on how to fight a southpaw. Boxers rely on their trainer’s advice as much, if not more, than that of their parents. It is a grave responsibility that I believe most of the greats never take lightly. However, judgment can become clouded.
It is easy to dump safety solely on a commission even though officials usually have little contact with a boxer. It really is up to the trainer to make certain a fighter is healthy at fight time and not be afraid to step in and stop a fight when necessary. Otherwise, they become an enabler. After all, who knows a fighter better than the trainer?
Many trainers repeatedly ignore newer and more effective techniques in conditioning and strength training, instilling safe and appropriate techniques in weight loss and instructing their fighters on the use of legal supplements. These are the things necessary not only to win but to have a safe retirement.
States like New York have courses and tests that trainers are required to pass. This should exist everywhere, and commissions should work closely with trainers and gyms.
5. Create a federal boxing commission
When questions about the lack of uniformity in boxing safety regulations arise, many cite “states rights.” In other words, each commission regulates the sport as it sees fit. Some do it well, some don’t. The Boxing Safety Act requires an ambulance and physician at ringside but little else.
Boxing needs to give up the idea of states rights.
A federal commission would have subpoena power to go after those who take advantage of fighters. It would also make promoters more accountable and incorporate uniform testing and medical suspensions (time off between fights following an injury or improvement of a medical condition.)
We can complain about lousy fight cards. We can moan about poor match-ups. But if we want to see fights officiated safely and boxers receive the protection they deserve, those involved need to make the necessary changes. First, we need to change the perspective that the status quo is acceptable.
I have listed just a few suggestions, but these would thrust the sport in the right direction with the least amount of effort and promote additional improvements.
Dr. Margaret Goodman is a practcing neurologist in Las Vegas. She is a former Medical Advisory Board Chairman and Chief Ringside Physician for the Nevada State Athletic Commission
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We have SMW and MW fighters fighting for the WW ChapionshipComment
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who cares, why make a new rule just to suit mayweather.Comment
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Well, when you say that you're better than Sugar Ray Robinson, who fought LaMotta while being outweighed 16 pounds, why should you care about fight night weights? Especially when the heavier fighter has his strength and endurance hindered by weight draining. (See Williams/Quintana I)
Mayweather already wants to fight little old JMM at a weight that gives Floyd the most advantage. Now you want to change the whole rule to favor Floyd? WOW.Comment
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the easiest thing to do would be to go back to same day weigh-insComment
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won't work.
boxers won't do it because they don't wanna get weighed 2x.
promoters won't do it because they don't want to lose money.
sanctioning bodies won't do it because they won't get boxers to fight for their belts.
athletic commission won't do it because fighters will try to abuse the system.
its an epic fail. good try tho.Comment
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Boxer injured in 2000 fight sues Gatti
Gamache sustained brain damage, says opponent weighed too much in ring
NEW YORK - A former boxer who says he sustained permanent brain damage in a 2000 bout against Arturo Gatti is now suing, saying Gatti weighed too much for the fight.
Joey Gamache, 39, and his wife filed a lawsuit in federal court Feb. 21 alleging breach of contract over the Feb. 26, 2000 bout at Madison Square Garden. Gatti won the fight.
By contract, both fighters had to weigh 141 pounds by at least eight hours before the bout started, according to the suit filed by lawyer Keith Sullivan. Gatti made weight the day before the fight, but the suit said his weight was “falsely represented” then and that he was actually 160 pounds by the time he got into the ring the next day.
Gatti overwhelmed Gamache in the first round and the fight was stopped 20 seconds into Round Two, but Gamache was hospitalized for two days afterward, the suit said.
“As a result of the devastating punishment inflicted by the severely overweight defendant ... (Gamache) has sustained severe and permanent neurological damages and injuries, which caused him to end his career as a professional boxer,” according to the suit.
Gamache, who suffers from migraine headaches he attributes to the beating, now works as a boxing trainer at Gleason’s Gym in Brooklyn.
“Every day is a battle,” Sullivan said Thursday. “He has great difficulty getting past these migraine headaches and he takes a ****tail of medications to get through it.”
Gamache has a separate complaint pending before the state Court of Claims against the New York State Athletic Commission over the administration of the weigh-in, Sullivan said.
Donald Tremblay, spokesman for Bloomfield, N.J.-based Main Events, Gatti’s promoter, said the company had not been served with the complaint and wouldn’t comment on its claims.
A breach-of-contract suit filed by Gamache over the fight was voluntarily withdrawn by him in August 2004, with the endorsement of U.S. District Judge Laura Taylor Swain, according to Tremblay.
Tremblay said he didn’t know what Gatti’s weight was by the time the fight began.
“I don’t know how much weight he gained afterward. That was when Arturo was really working hard to make weight. How much he actually gained, I don’t know. He worked hard to get down and make the weight. After that, when you replenish with liquids you’re going to gain some weight back. Some guys gain more than others.”Comment
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