Safety Issues Weigh Heavily On Boxing Arum Says Forbidding Precipitous Weight Loss May Be Better Answer Than Adding Headgear
As it always does, boxing has weathered its latest storm.
“But the people in boxing are kidding themselves,” said promoter Bob Arum, still haunted by the ring-related death of Jimmy Garcia of Colombia on May 19.
It has been six weeks since Garcia, 23, succumbed to massive brain injuries sustained during a fight against World Boxing Council super featherweight champion Gabriel Ruelas in Las Vegas.
Meanwhile, super middleweight Gerald McClellan, who suffered a brain injury Feb. 25 against Nigel Benn, is making what trainer Emanuel Steward describes as “gradual, steady improvement” in his rehabilitation.
“But he’s still not able to function normally,” Steward said last week.
These incidents have spawned the usual editorials from outside the business calling for the sport to be banned, and the usual outcries from inside the business for better self-policing. It’s business as usual, said Arum.
“Everybody wrings their hands and pontificates, but nobody does anything about it,” said Arum, the president of Las Vegas-based Top Rank Inc. “I’m not a doctor, but I’m telling you, the primary cause of these brain injuries in the ring is precipitous weight loss. That, in my mind, is the culprit.”
Arum said Garcia was dehydrated and therefore more vulnerable to injury after being forced to drop nearly 20 percent of his body weight to make the 130-pound limit. Arum said Garcia’s problem was accelerated by the use of diuretics, the fashionable way to make title-fight weight limits in the 1990s.
Those looking at mandatory headgear or 12-ounce gloves in the professional ranks as possible solutions to the prevention of brain injuries are attacking the problem from the wrong direction, Arum said.
“What these state commissions should do if they’re concerned about the health and safety of fighters,” Arum said, “is to undertake a study immediately as to what appears to be one of the possible causes - precipitous weight loss - and see if that’s really the case.
“But nobody does anything - until the next fatality occurs.”
That is not entirely so. The Nevada State Athletic Commission was studying the effect of weight loss on the performance of fighters months before the Garcia tragedy.
“For the last six months, we’ve been weighing the fighters at the weigh-in, 24 hours before the fight, and right before they go out to fight,” said Marc Ratner, the commission’s executive director. “We’re trying to find out the amount of weight they gain in the 24 hours before the fight. We’re trying to find out medically how far they were dehydrated.”
Shocking numbers
Some findings have been startling. For instance, Ratner said Roy Jones and James Toney officially weighed in at the division limit of 168 pounds for their super middleweight title fight in November.
“When Toney climbed into the ring, I believe he weighed 183. Jones weighed 181,” Ratner said. “They both had double-digit weight gains from Friday at 5 p.m. to Saturday at 5 p.m. That is a tremendous weight gain.
“Is all that liquid weight? Can you rehydrate enough electrolytes back into your system in 24 hours? We know that Toney continually has a problem making weight, and he didn’t look like the same James Toney in that fight. Maybe he gained too much weight.”
Toney reportedly had to drop from 200 pounds to 168 in the weeks before the fight, which he lost.
“James Toney is very, very lucky that Roy Jones fights the way he does, or he could have been in serious trouble in that fight,” Arum said. “Toney losing that weight is bad enough, but he’s a bigger guy. Imagine losing 30 pounds to get down to 130, like Garcia did.”
Arum said Garcia reportedly weighed 160 when he agreed to fight Ruelas, necessitating a loss of 30 pounds. Ratner, however, said that 30-pound figure was unsubstantiated.
“The father told me it was 12 to 15 pounds (of excess weight),” Ratner said. “The doctors I’ve talked to when I was in the kid’s room, they showed me his skin and said it was too tight - that there was no way he could have weighed 160 and got down to 130 in a two-month period.”
Nonetheless, Garcia was injured, Arum said, because his body did not have sufficient time to rehydrate and allow fluids to flow naturally to the brain.
Dr. William Gardner of Fort Worth, a medical consultant to the North American Boxing Federation, said Arum is on target.
Gardner described the brain as “not much more than a pound and a half of good, hard jello.” When an athlete undergoes dehydration, Gardner said, the fluids in the body become quite concentrated.
“With any disturbances of the electrolytes - the loss of sodium and potassium - you do not get proper metabolism of the brain,” Gardner said. “It doesn’t function as well. You would tend toward muscle cramps and a certain amount of confusion and poor reactions.
“If Garcia lost 30 pounds, he was in no condition to carry on a good, quality fight, because the brain is most susceptible to injury and failure to react properly and a loss of protective reflexes.”
Arum, who has 29 years of experience in the business, said that this type of injury does not occur in the heavyweight ranks.
“I think the reason for it,” Arum said, “is heavyweights don’t have to dehydrate themselves to make weight.”
Arum said one solution to overweight fighters accepting bouts is to have them weighed by their local commission at the time they sign the fight contract. If the fighter is above an acceptable standard - yet another point for argument - he would be disqualified.
Manager/trainer Jesse Reid, who has worked the corners of 13 world champions, said Garcia’s handlers were as much at fault as the fighter.
“To dehydrate your body like that is insane,” said Reid. “Weight loss was a big factor, but so was the ignorance of his corner - knowing that after the sixth round, the kid was taking a pounding.”
Gardner said a common problem is that too many “trainers” possess no real medical skills.
“Who are the trainers? They are other boxers who have a towel and a bucket of water,” Gardner said. “They are the daddies, who sit there and say, ‘Hit him. Hit him. And hit him again.”’
Garcia’s father, Manuel, and his brother worked the corner during the May 6 fight. Ratner said they kept exhorting the boxer to try harder, even as he was getting pounded. Garcia lasted into the 11th round of the scheduled 12-rounder before the fight was stopped. Garcia later collapsed in his corner.
Dr. Albert Capanna, the neurosurgeon who operated on Garcia in Las Vegas, said Garcia suffered slow bleeding from a vein in his head, bleeding that probably began during the fight. When the pressure built to a high level, it moved his brain and caused his collapse, Capanna said.
Preventive measures
Reid suggested that in addition to administering neurological exams to fighters, state commissions should make a concerted effort to check the history of trainers and cornermen.
Reid said headgear should be mandatory for professional boxers. Reid also would like to see the scoring of ringside judges displayed after every round, so there is no doubt as to who is winning the fight.
“If I’m in the corner, I don’t know if my fighter is winning,” said Reid, who trained Ancee Gedeon for his upset victory against then-U.S. Boxing Association bantamweight champion Sergio Reyes on June20 in Fort Worth. “When we fought Sergio Reyes, I was pushing Ancee Gedeon every round. There should be some accountability after every round from the judges, the so-called police force of boxing. Put the pressure on their butts.”
The issues of mandatory headgear and bigger gloves are recycled each time a professional fighter is injured.
“I’m for anything that can make a fighter last longer and do a better job - and not rearrange his face.”George Foreman, who has relinquished his International Boxing
Federation heavyweight title rather than fight Axel Schulz, called for the introduction of mandatory headgear shortly after Garcia’s death.
“We don’t know whether the wearing of headgear has any effect on the incidence of brain injury,” Arum countered. “There is a study going on at Johns Hopkins (University) which should provide some of the answers.”
Arum was referring to studies being conducted by a team headed by Walter Stewart, an epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins’ School of Hygiene and Health.
Ratner said his office has been bombarded with questions about the use of headgear.
“Headgear doesn’t protect the inside of the skull, where the brain rests,” said Ratner, a 10-year member of the Nevada commission. “The injury is caused by the brain moving around. I don’t foresee headgear as the answer.”
Neither does Gardner.
“Probably fitted headgear does have some value,” Gardner said. “If the gear is not properly fitted, if it slips, you can get visual obstruction.”
Gloves have also been targeted by critics, but Ratner says heavier gloves probably aren’t the answer.
“You could go to 12-ounce gloves,” Ratner said, “but there’s two schools of thought. One is that it cushions the punches; the other is that the more weight you have on your hands, the heavier your hands are. And when they get wet and sweaty, your hands provide a heavier blow.”
Watching for signs
Gardner, who said he has sat ringside for between 350 and 400 professional fights, said referees can be trained to recognize when a boxer has suffered a possible brain injury.
“You watch the reflexes,” he said. “If a boxer is trying to find the floor with his foot and can’t find it - if he’s uncertain where his feet go - you know this kid is going to go down. He can’t stand in position to protect himself. I also watch how they get up after they’re down, what their eyes are doing. This is what we have to talk to refs about.”
But veteran referee Arthur Mercante Sr. said the toughest part of his job is knowing when to stop a fight.
“This is why I don’t go for the standing eight-count,” said Mercante. “When a referee is in question, he questions, ‘Should I stop this fight or not?’ When a standing eight-count is required, you should be stopping the fight.”
But not even the most stringent rules on the books can always prevent a tragedy in the ring.
“I believe there will always be boxing here,” said Ratner, whose office is in Las Vegas. “It’s a sport that’s very important to the economy. It’s my job and our job to keep it as healthy as possible. Can we stop anybody from getting hurt? No. We can certainly be prepared if they do.
“And even though we feel we did everything right for Jimmy Garcia, if it was a perfect world, the kid would have lived. And he didn’t.”