Slide of the Hardest Game Part I: The case of Marco Antonio Barrera

24.02.04 – By Andrew Mullinder: When Bob Arum called boxing the “garbage can of professional sports”, he may have done better to direct his baleful tongue towards the issue of when fighters should retire, who is fit to fight, and who should decide on either question because this, rather than bad judging is the most injurious element of boxing.

Of course, the public revulsion when a boxer is robbed by the judges in an important fight is rightly vociferous; however, even this feeling of indignation can not compare to the uneasy queasiness, the almost abhorrent emotions generated when a fighter is badly hurt or killed in the ring. The fact that the most recognizable image associated with boxing for casual or non fans is that of Muhammed Ali and his condition – which is obviously related to his chosen profession – merely proves the point that it does far more damage to boxing when it is seen as a cruel and dangerous pursuit where the combatants are left irreparably damaged than to hear some fat-cat cry fix when his golden goose loses a close fight.

Within this context, I was shocked when I heard the news of Marco Antonio Barrera’s brain surgery. How could the relevant authorities be so inept that they could allow Barrera to step into the ring for two incandescent fights with future Mexican great, Eric Morales, and take on arguably the most powerful puncher in featherweight history, Naseem Hamed, and not realize that the part of him they were all targeting had undergone major surgery?

All of the medical experts have thus far concluded Barrera is at no greater risk of injury as a result of his operation. However, those who argue that this medical prognosis – or that it is Barrera’s right to choose whether to fight or not – means that the whole affair has been blown out of proportion are missing the point. In his peerless book, ‘the Black Lights’, Thomas Hauser wrote: “[boxing] is essentially an attacking sport. Gloves are worn to protect the fists, not the brain. It is the most violent activity condoned by man, except for certain phases of law enforcement and war”. While people like myself are willing to watch such a self evidently violent sport – and indeed worship its combatants –we must accept our responsibilities, both moral and for the sake of saving boxing.

The main argument in favour of the abolition of boxing has never been the number of injuries – many sports leave boxing trailing in their wake when measured on that gruesome scale – but rather the motive behind those injuries. While the winner of a fight can be gauged, through the assessment of judges, without a knockout, by far the most effective method of winning a boxing match has always been, and will be forever more (unless you happen to be Sven Ottke) to damage your opponent’s brain to the extent that his body can no longer enact its most basic functions, such as standing upright and reading the signals the eyes give out. Within this context it would be puerile to completely dismiss the attitudes of those who view boxing as unacceptable in a civilised society, and if boxing is to continue as a sport in the face of slowly increasing medical and public opposition it needs to stop fanning the flames of the abolitionist’s fire and create some sort of consistent medical framework for allocating boxing licenses.

The only way to maintain some consistency in medical provision and testing, and engender the moral credibility boxing is increasingly in need of, is to wrench power from the disparate and chaotic groups who currently control the distribution of boxing licences and put it in the hands of a federal commission who can remain aloof of the clamorous parties who would put personal gain ahead of the safety of fighters. Boxing lethally mixes lecherous, self-serving sanctioning bodies, greedy, corrupt promoters and expedient but often inept, autonomous state authorities, into a toxic administrative cocktail which far from helping the matters, guarantees that similar cases will occur again.

When Hauser first broke the news of Barrera’s operation in his secondsout.com column, he called for “…an outpouring of revulsion from the media [and] the boxing community as a whole.” Unfortunately, nothing, as yet, has been done. I get the feeling that as long as the action is exciting, plentiful and relatively fair; as long as our favourites continue to win, we will keep brushing the medical issue under the carpet like a man who knows he should get that lump checked out but doesn’t bother because his balls haven’t dropped off yet. Whatever happens to clean up the image of boxing and improve the quality of the product for fans, without the cornerstone of medical credibility boxing will be forever sidelined and criticised: it will only take five minutes of internet research by an investigative journalist, or an expose on some ‘leaked’ FBI documents for similar cases to that of Barrera to be trawled up like skeletons from a politician’s closet. While this pressure can be brought to bear at any time and while we do nothing about it, boxing may as well shut up shop, because the never sated of opponents of boxing will, at the very least, ensure it never achieves the mainstream status it once enjoyed, and now needs more than ever before.