The Last Round

I attended a local card last Friday, mostly young fighters on their way up, no big names, though there were a couple who had their moment’s of past success. Tony Marshall was on the undercard. Tony held some minor titles and was ranked in the top ten for a short while some time back. Like many fighters, age and years of ring wars have diminished his skills. Tony went up against young Leonard Pierre, a kid with potential and a style that is somewhat reminiscent of a smaller, younger Mike Tyson, but with Kevin Rooney in his corner that is no surprise. He has that type of style.

Now, usually a veteran can handle himself nicely against a young fighter. Even if he can’t keep the pace he once did, he can use his knowledge of the ring to balance things out, movement, inside fighting, knowledge of the ring etc. Even if he loses he can keep from getting beat up too badly. Add a good corner to it and you may even squeeze out a win. When a fighter reaches this point in his career it is time to hang them up. As you start going down the ladder and become a stepping stone for others, common sense should let you know the time has come. This doesn’t always happen, though. I don’t know if it is pride, the thought that it was an off night, the thought that you can regain that old form. I don’t know. It is not going to happen; it’s time to bow out gracefully and retire, hopefully with your mind and motor skills still intact.

As a man, I know it is hard to come to terms with the fact you are not as young as you used to be. I used to play football with the kids for hours at the park without even being slightly tired. Nowadays, after thirty minutes I’m exhausted. As a teen and in my early twenties I used to box and I wouldn’t dream of it now. Though I hate to admit it, I am getting old. So for a pro athlete I know it must be harder to admit this to yourself. It has to be a great blow to the ego. This is where your trainers, managers and promoters come in.

Let’s be realistic, sometimes we don’t always know what is best for ourselves. As a trainer, I have thrown the towel in on a fighter who was getting the worst end of a fight with no offence in return. My fighter has been angry with me to the point that they won’t talk to me for weeks, but in the end I know I did what was right for my fighter. I had his best interest in mind.

Though Friday was not a one sided beating it was hard to watch. Tony did have a few moments, but was saddled with a bad cut over his eye–which caused the fight to be stopped–and a cutman not worth a dime. It was hard to watch him go out there as a stepping stone for this kid. Kevin Rooney said after the fight in an interview, “They had more guts than brains”, knowing their fighter was taking punishment and they could not stop the bleeding, they should have thrown in the towel. That was their job. Tony, being a true ring warrior, doesn’t have an ounce of quit in him and he isn’t supposed to; this is boxing. Your handlers around you are supposed to do what is best for you. This was not a night where that happened.

One of the best decisions I have seen in a while made by a commision was when they revoked Evander Holyfield’s license to box, for his own safety. Evander had been on the receiving end of a few bad losses, his speech showed all the signs of a punchy fighter and this was enough for someone to take notice. It is unfortunate that only a big name fighter gets that attention. There are dozens of guys who should be noticed as well.

One of my biggest lows in the twenty years that I have been involved in this sport came earlier this year. I was watching one of the best boxing programmes on TV: HBO’s Legendary Night’s. This one episode focused on the Chavez-Taylor bout. We all know the controversy that went on there. For those who don’t, Meldrick Taylor was one of the best pound for pound fighters in the world at the time and was facing a Mexican legend, the undefeated Julio Cesar Chavez. Taylor was well ahead on points when Chavez started to come on in the tenth round. In the twelfth round Taylor was still comfortably ahead. With about ten seconds left Chavez started a brutal assault and Richard Steele stopped the fight with just seconds left, costing Taylor the fight. Taylor was never the same again after that. After a few more fights he faded away.

I was disturbed to find out that Taylor was still fighting. He fights in small venues for a few hundred dollars per fight in front of modest crowds. Meldrick lives in a low income housing project and spends his time in front of his TV most of the day, dreaming of the next “BIG” bout coming his way. They interviewed him and he was barely coherent. His speech was so slurred that someone might mistake him for a man who has had way too much to drink. Taylor spoke of still being the best and how he would be champ again soon if given the opportunity. You could see in his eyes that he believed this truly. But you could also see something else in his eyes as he said this. He had the same look in his eyes my five year old son did when he told me of his plan to catch the Easter bunny. He wanted to be reassured it was going to work before he tried it. Meldrick wanted someone to tell him he was still great and he would be the champ again and when no one did he just looked down and got up.

This was once one of the best pound for pound fighters in the world, who now gets beaten to all four corners by guys you have never heard of, for just a few bucks to get by. Meldrick was a champion in and out of the ring; he deserved better than this. I’ll be the first to say boxing owes him more than this. How many more fights does he have to take before someone steps in? Does he have to end up like Gerald McClellan before someone recognizes he has been in there too long?

We have trainers, managers and promoters who claim to have their fighters best interest at heart at all times. We have commissions, countless organisations and doctors who do the physicals. All of the above make a very nice living off this sport. Where is the interest in a fighter’s safety? Is the interest gone as soon as the talent fades?

This is a great sport we watch. There is nothing more exciting than watching two warriors going at it, one on one, to prove their supremacy. It’s just that when the supremacy is gone and all they have left to offer is a big name in the W column for some unknown fighter to build on, we should stop taking notice.

The career of a fighter ends early. For the majority it is long before they are forty. They still have their whole life ahead of them and family’s who love them. They are even young enough to have a second career, but with a speech impediment, deteriorated motor skills and other detrimental effects that go hand-in-hand with too many blows to the head, what more is there to do? What kind of future is left?

If you eat the wrong kind of food and your blood pressure goes through the roof, we have doctors to tell us and give us a diet and medication to fix this. If a guy has too much to drink in a bar, the bartender cuts them off and calls a cab for their own good. This is their job; they do what is best for their patient or customer. Why in boxing do we not have more people doing what’s best for the fighters? They are supposed to be the number one concern. The guy at the bar doesn’t get one more drink. He is told to go home. Why is it that, when the time comes, those around their fighter can’t tell him he has had his last round and that it’s time to go home.