‘Boxing is a mess’: the darkness and damage of brain trauma in the ring

The writer, the fighter, the doctor and the widow all look down into the darkness and damage of boxing. They understand the previously untold story of brain trauma in the ring and, as they talk to me, their moving testimony underpins a shared belief that change has to come. There is a measured urgency to their words for they love the fighters and they want to offer their knowledge to help make this brutal sport a little safer.

Damage and death have always framed boxing. This harsh truth means that, despite the chaos outside the ring, boxing is shockingly real. It can maim and even kill but, in a strange paradox, boxing also makes most fighters feel more intensely alive than anything else.

ris Dixon has written the book that boxing has always needed. Dixon, the former editor of Boxing News, now a freelance writer and the host of the Boxing Life Stories podcast, confronts the damage done to fighters with unflinching honesty. It is shattering yet tender as Dixon charts the history and science of CTE (chronic traumatic encephalopathy), a brain condition caused by repeated blows to the head.

He shows how it was called “punch-drunk syndrome” and “dementia pugilistica” as neurologists struggled to explain the slurred speech, memory loss, shakes, violent mood swings, depression and other symptoms. Dixon’s book reads powerfully because he is such an authority on boxing and he writes about fighters with deep affection and respect.

Dixon also talks to boxing widows. The most interesting is Frankie Pryor who tells me how she met her husband in rehab 30 years ago. Aaron Pryor, revered in boxing as The Hawk, was a two-times light-welterweight world champion who fought professionally from 1976 to 1990. He won 39 of his 40 fights, including two unforgettable battles against another legendary boxer, Alexis Argüello, in 1982 and 1983.

Pryor was friends with Muhammad Ali but The Hawk and The Greatest were both irreparably damaged. Boxing spares no one. Pryor died in 2016, aged 60, and his widow explains his deterioration and the salvation boxing once offered.

Tony Jeffries is the fighter. The 36-year-old is from Sunderland and he and his family are now “living the dream” in Los Angeles where he runs two successful gyms. Jeffries won an Olympic bronze medal in 2008 and he was an unbeaten pro after 10 bouts when, in 2011, his fragile hands forced his retirement. Jeffries hopes he “dodged a bullet” called CTE. He boxed between the ages of 10 and 27 and, according to his calculations, was punched in the head “between 40,000 and 50,000 times”. Jeffries waits anxiously for the consequences.

Those numbers are described as “scary” when I share them with Dr Margaret Goodman, a Las Vegas neurologist who worked as a ringside physician from 1994 to 2005. She tended to fighters in more than 500 professional bouts but, in campaigning for their safety, was burnt out by boxing and so she founded, and is now the president of, Vada – the Voluntary Anti-Doping Association. “Boxing,” Goodman notes, “is a beautiful sickness in so many ways.”

The widow, the fighter and the doctor feature in Dixon’s book. They recognise its significance, which comforts the writer. “I am worried the anti-boxing brigade might use my argument against the sport,” Dixon tells me. “But the direction of the book is to say: ‘We don’t talk about it but this is what needs to be done to mitigate the risks and to make sure these guys have a better life after boxing.’ I don’t want a scrapheap of damaged fighters.”

He has been immersed in the sport for decades but does Dixon feel fresh hope that boxing might examine the damage it causes fighters who generate billions of dollars for wayward governing bodies, promoters and managers? “No – but it’s time to find out who cares. Who wants to look after fighters? If these people want fighters to be OK after boxing then I’m not going to have the ego to say they must read the book. But I suggest they learn about CTE, tau protein and links with Alzheimer’s, dementia, Parkinson’s and ALS [amyotrophic lateral sclerosis].

It's also down to the fighters to not be so macho. Fighters and trainers need to know what's going on with their brains