May 24, 2007 in Sports

Health main issue for older, comeback boxers

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Ken Cartonla loves boxing, and, at age 58, loves the idea of 44-year-old Evander Holyfield wanting another shot at the heavyweight championship of professional boxing.

“I think it’s remarkable,” he said recently as he handled various administrative duties for the USA Boxing Eastern Trials. “It’s great for us old folks. He’s a remarkable physical specimen.”

Holyfield certainly has always presented himself as something of the textbook anatomy chart in his boxing career, but Cartonla thinks the former champ has another advantage that comes with his age and experience.

“It’s a thinking man’s sport,” he said. “It’s like fencing and chess.”

But fencing and chess don’t have the physical contact of professional boxing.

“The real issue about someone boxing at 44 is boxing with mileage or without mileage,” said Dr. Frank Filiberto, the president of the American College of Ringside Physicians and the chairman of the USA Boxing National Medical Committee. “Every boxer who gets hit in the head has had mild concussions.

“That’s not saying Evander’s not fit to fight, but those are the issues,” Filiberto said. “The fact that some state has given him a license (means) he’s been checked out.”

But that raises another issue. Filiberto said it is possible for a professional boxer to glide from state to state in search of one that will license him. That can’t happen in the amateur ranks, which is governed by a national body. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., has proposed putting professional boxing under a national body to monitor the same health issues.

Holyfield plans to fight on June 30 in El Paso, Texas. “Some time this year I’ll be fighting for the championship, and I will win,” he said.

Boxing is only one of the high-visibility sports in which comebacks have made news lately:

“Dara Torres, 40, may swim internationally again after already becoming the first four-time Olympic swimmer when she was 33. Her five relay medals in 2000 tied Marion Jones for the lead among American athletes in the Games.

“Pitcher Roger Clemens, also 44, who is returning to his sport with the New York Yankees, has proved naysayers wrong more than once in his long career.

Cocoa, Fla., athletic trainer Tim Ferren said those days can’t last forever.

“Eventually, there won’t be any more bullets in the gun,” Ferren said. “Granted, (Clemens) had more bullets than probably anybody.”

Tendinitis and bursitis are “extremely common” in those like Clemens, but Ferren said pro athletes are often better equipped to prepare and measure their performance.

“We are talking about intelligent professional athletes who know how to maintain themselves,” he said. “They know how to eat, how to do strength training and maintenance. That’s how they’ve survived.”

As for Holyfield continuing to box? Ferren is far less enthusiastic and, as a health professional, doesn’t have much faith in the safety of pro boxing in the first place.

“How the human brain can withstand repetitive pounding over years and years, you can’t know,” he said. “If you’re going to (box), do it as a young man and get out.”

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