Comments Thread For: Dirrell's Trainer: Andre Could Have Been Left a Vegetable

[Orale Vato]

Where was all this outrage immediately after the fight?! ****ing putos. I've noticed a lot of these black fighters ***** and moan about every ****ing thing!

[Bastian Loc]

he didn't fight like a vegetable, he fought more like a fruit if you ask me.

He fought like an avocado, which most people think is a vegetable, but is in fact a omega 3 rich fruit.

[Beater_of_ass]

hey, im not saying he's NOT faking

just gimme a yes or no on my last post

The lawyer tricks don't work, yes or no questions are an ultimatum and it isn't how you handle a discussion. Its also a question that requires more than a yes or no answer, you didn't just ask me if I have to use the restroom. But I will say its all very curious that all this came up AFTER the fight was signed. In reality, if this had happened if he were facing any other fighter I would believed him because this is the only fighter he doesn't WANT to fight due to friendship. Notice I didn't put WON'T fight because all this MAY be true, but if it is retirement is the only option. There is NO WAY you have a BRAIN injury to the point where "you almost become vegetable" and then return to a career where you take PUNCHES to the head. That being said the more appropriate question would be:

Why was the first time negotiations fell through because of the inability of both sides to agree to a venue. Then, the they signed contracts to fight each other but there issue from the first negotiations was never resolved? That would be like Floyd/Pac signing to fight each other without agreeing to how they were going to handle drug testing. Lets even forget that injury was an issue, this thing has bull**** written all over it. This is boxing FFS, is it out of the realm of possibility that they signed a contract they never really were going to follow through with and would use this an excuse?

It isn't that I don't believe him either, if he's hurt I feel horrible for the guy but all the events leading up to and these events and whats coming out of his camps mouth simply don't add up.

[SplitSecond]

when did he say he didn't wanna fight anyway? i've seen ward once say "ah, we will talk about this when it's time" or somethin along those lines and has not once mentioned his strategy for dirrell and whatnot

but dirrell has always been "yea i'd fight a friend for a million bucks" "i can't let it get personal" "my gameplan is to box" blah blah

but i could be wrong, maybe somewhere he mentioned he doesn't wanna fight

[SplitSecond]

oh and i'd also like to say that he did mentioned the whole dizzy spells/headaches shizz BEFORE the signing of ward and him.

[Beater_of_ass]

oh and i'd also like to say that he did mentioned the whole dizzy spells/headaches shizz BEFORE the signing of ward and him.

If this is true (which I don't believe) then why didn't they get it checked out? It must show Dirrell's team don't give a **** about his health. Anytime a fighter complains about dizziness/headaches at anytime ESPECIALLY after the way he got hit should get it checked out immediately... Oh wait, they did right after the fight and he was given a clean bill of health aside from a concussion, once again if it was BRAIN NERVE damage it doesn't just happen all of a sudden. If someone hit me with a bat, my arm wouldn't break 5 months later it would have broken upon impact. Its the same situation here, if there was nerve damage it would have been found that night at the hospital where catscans and MRI's are always done. Again if he ends up retiring due to this you can call me an assh*le or whatever for not believing him, but until then I have every right to question it, especially in the boxing world.

[SplitSecond]

If this is true (which I don't believe) then why didn't they get it checked out? It must show Dirrell's team don't give a **** about his health. Anytime a fighter complains about dizziness/headaches at anytime ESPECIALLY after the way he got hit should get it checked out immediately... Oh wait, they did right after the fight and he was given a clean bill of health aside from a concussion, once again if it was BRAIN NERVE damage it doesn't just happen all of a sudden. If someone hit me with a bat, my arm wouldn't break 5 months later it would have broken upon impact. Its the same situation here, if there was nerve damage it would have been found that night at the hospital where catscans and MRI's are always done. Again if he ends up retiring due to this you can call me an assh*le or whatever for not believing him, but until then I have every right to question it, especially in the boxing world.

he did get it checked, he was diagnosed with a mild concussion too

and occasionally CT scans can miss out on things, so dont go thinkin it's perfect, just a heads up

[Dave Rado]

so you want a guy that has sustained enough neurological damage to cancel a fight to continue getting his head bashed in? WTF is wrong with people? When taylor bowed out of the super 6 it was because no one wanted to see him turn into a vegetable. but here people are who say the neurological damage is legit wanting to see dirrell become a vegetable.

Am I missing something here? either you have neurological damage and GTFO of boxing or you dont' and you continue boxing.

honestly, neurological damage isn't temporary. brain cells and nerve cells don't grow back. once **** is ****ed up, its ****ed up for good.

so if dirrell really has neurolgoical problems, he should exit to the left cause he's gonna get hit to the head many many many more times if he continues with his career.

froch injured his back... that **** can heal. kessler ****ed up his eye.... pretty serious, but not as serious as neurological damage. but if you are a young boxer like dirrell and you already have neuological problems, its time to get the **** out.

Did you even bother to read the article about Post-concussion syndrome?

"Post-concussion syndrome, also known as postconcussive syndrome or PCS, and historically called shell shock[1], is a set of symptoms that a person may experience for weeks, months, or occasionally up to a year or more after a concussion"

In other words, it's almost always temporary.

[Dave Rado]

ok i couldnt resist. yes there are clinical tests that a doctor can perform to test for a concussion...even AFTER a concussion is sustained
they ask you questions to test your brain function. then you undergo a battery of physical tests to check your motor skills, strength, reflexes, etc.

MRIs, CT, MRAs are used to see if any bruising or bleeding had occurred.
so no, what was in the hatton article was not the same. they didnt even have to test hatton for a concussion because he clearly lost consciousness in the ring as a result of head trauma. it was NOT clear if dirrell suffered a concussion or not. he underwent the battery of tests and a possible concussion was ruled out.
guess he wasnt that good at lying to the doctors then.

All those tests are to find out whether there is any remaining detectable brain trauma or whether there is any remaining detectable concussion. In both Hatton's and Dirrell's case, there wasn't. Those tests do not and cannot determine whether a concussion has occurred in the past, only whether any of the symptoms of it persist.

[Dave Rado]

Thing is, it's all very well saying wait for Dirrell to fully recover before allowing him back in the ring again etc, but how exactly is anyone to know when he is, in fact, fully recovered? His post-fight checkup revealed no abnormalities yet the punch evidently afflicted with with dizzy spells and blackout-like symptoms up to this present day, to the extent that he had to pull out of the Ward fight. Hell, he wasn't even able to spar or train! It must've been serious. Yet Direll claimed to be fully recovered in an interview conducted a few months after the fight. Either the symptoms hadn't manifested themselves yet, or (more likely) Dirrell was covering the extent of his damage up in order not to jeopardise his upcoming fight with his good friend Andre Ward. Who's to say he wouldn't do the same in future? Many boxers have been able to fob off the doctors during the pre-fight fight medical when they were clearly unwell. The medical can only unearth so much, there needs to be a degree of complicity with the boxer answering questions truthfully. Dirrell is a liability, and so long as there's the possibility that he could be in serious danger from the next punch thrown in his professional boxing career, then I don't see why anyone would want to risk having him on their show.

You make some good points, but I don't think it's cut and dried. For one thing, his relatives would have to be convinced that he was fully recovered before they would be complicit in his returning to the ring. If they weren't convinced, then I would certainly be against him returning against their advice. But as I keep pointing out, post-concussive syndrome is almost always a temporary condition and very rarely lasts more than a year or so. To ban a boxer for life from earning a living from his sport due to a temporary condition is too harsh. A sport that allowed Holyfield and Toney to fight on, when they both appear to be suffering from incipient permanent brain damage, yet banned Dirrell for life on the basis of a temporary condition that is highly unlikely to last much more than a year would be ridiculous. I agree that he'd need very careful medical scrutiny before boxing again though. But as Lorily pointed out in another post, he will certainly get very careful scrutiny from the commissions if he tries to fight again, because the boxing commissions take neurological conditions extremely seriously. If they pass him to fight in the future, and if it has the backing of his relatives, then that should be good enough for any objective boxing fan.