Dr. Margaret Goodman (former chief ringside physician and chairperson of the medical advisory board for the Nevada State Athletic Commission) is a neurologist and one of the foremost advocates for fighter safety in the United States. She’s also president of the Voluntary Anti-Doping Association, which oversees the most credible performance-enhancing-drug testing in boxing today.
Dr. Goodman has this to say about New York’s new medical protocols:
“First, as far as standing on the ring apron is concerned, that’s more for show than anything else. If you need to get in there, get in there. As far as extending the one-minute break between rounds; I understand the need to safeguard the fighter. But in my opinion, that one minute should only be extended in extreme circumstances. Otherwise, you’re interfering with the flow of the fight and possibly changing the outcome of the fight.”
“Also,” Dr. Goodman continues, “I have safety concerns with the New York procedure because you’re giving the damaged fighter extra time to recover and exposing him to second impact syndrome. In most situations an experienced ring doctor should be able to do what he or she has to do within the one minute that’s allotted. Except in rare situations, a talented ring doctor doesn’t need the extra time. They have some very good ring doctors in New York, but they’re operating within a flawed system.”
Not long ago, I was talking with Freddie Roach about Muhammad Ali, and the conversation turned to Roach’s own physical condition.
Roach suffers from Parkinson’s syndrome, which is characterized by various symptoms including, in Roach’s case, visible tremors. Most likely, his condition was caused by taking too many blows to the head during his career as a boxer.
“I never thought ever in my life about being injured in a fight,” Roach said. “It never crossed my mind once. There was a time when Eddie Futch [Roach’s trainer] told me that I was starting to get hit too much; it’s time that I give it up. I was upset with Eddie at that point. I got a little mad. I said, ‘Well, you’re pretty old. Why don’t you retire? I can still do this.’ I fought five more fights and I lost four of the five. Then I humbly went to Eddie and asked him if I could be his assistant trainer and have a job. That changed my whole life from being a washed-up fighter to being something in life.”
“I became aware of the health issues about two years after I retired,” Roach continued. “I was running with Virgil Hill up in Reno. It was a very nice place for conditioning, running, horses and so forth. I was watching a horse as we ran and I hit a hole and broke my leg. When I came out of the cast, I developed a dropped foot and then the tremors started coming. I remember the first time someone asked me about the tremors. It was a girlfriend. She said, ‘Are you saying no or are you just shaking again?’ I said, ‘What do you mean, shaking again?’ She goes, ‘You shake all the time.’ Then I met a couple doctors and they took me to the Mayo Clinic and they diagnosed me with Parkinson’s about six months later.”
Chuck is the latest in a string of recent biopics about professional boxers. “Once upon a time,” it begins, “I was the heavyweight champion of New Jersey. Hoboken had Sinatra. Bayonne had Chuck Wepner.”
Liev Schreiber plays Wepner. That presents a challenge, since Wepner is a huge hulking man and Schreiber lacks Wepner’s physicality, but he’s credible in the role. Elizabeth Moss gives a virtuoso performance as Wepner’s long-suffering first wife, Phyllis. Ron Perlman is suitably obnoxious as Wepner’s manager, Al Braverman. Naomi Watts is enticing as the woman who becomes wife number two, Linda Wepner.
Chuck focuses on Wepner’s fifteenth-round knockout loss to Muhammad Ali, the Rocky franchise that grew out of his inspirational effort that night, and the then-sordid underside of Wepner’s character. Among other transgressions, the highlighted character flaws include profligate womanizing and a love affair with cocaine that led to a twenty-six-month stint in prison for cocaine distribution. It’s an unvarnished warts-and-all portrait of Wepner.
Raging Bull set the standard to which all boxing biopics (and many other films) aspire. Years ago, Vikki LaMotta told me about sitting next to Jake at the premiere of Raging Bull in New York.
“When the movie ended,” Vikki recounted, “the audience seemed stunned. Jake was sitting directly beside me. For a long time, he was silent.”
“Jake, did you like it?”
“I don’t know,” he said finally. “I could see this movie ten times and not know what to think. DeNiro is great. He’s really me. But I see that man on screen. I know I’ve done all those things, and I don’t like that person. He’s a bad man, and I know it’s me.”
So how does the real-life Chuck Wepner feel about Liev Schreiber’s portrayal of him in Chuck?
“I know it’s not complimentary,” Wepner acknowledges. “But it doesn’t bother me. I wasn’t always good. There were times when I was bad. It’s who I was.”
“This whole experience has been very gratifying for me,” Wepner continues. “It’s a major movie with two of the biggest stars in the world. It’s a good movie, and I have a piece of it, so I’ll make some money. And as far as me as a fighter, I know I wasn’t great. I was a tough guy who could take a punch. That’s what the movie shows me to be.”
The fight scenes in Chuck are reasonably realistic, which is more than can be said of the fight scenes in many boxing movies today. The 1970s are nicely recreated. At one point in the film, Linda says to Chuck, “There’s more to you than meets the eye, Chuck Wepner. Not much. But enough.”
The same can be said of this movie. It’s an enjoyable ride.
Words of Wisdom from Fighters
Art Aragon (boxing’s original “Golden Boy”): “When you quit the ring, if you’re a big success, you’re only a few thousand dollars in debt and only a little bit brain-damaged.”
Jorge Arce: “People want to see fighters fighting, not dancing. They want to see blood. I give them blood; I love that. If it gets on me, I get more motivated and excited.”
Earnie Shavers: “Thank God, I was a puncher. I had no fear. I believed in myself and thought I could knock out the world. The only time I remember a little fear was when I fought Roy ’Tiger’ Williams. I’d been promised a shot at Ali if I beat him, so I took the fight. But I knew it would be tough. Right before I went to the ring, I looked at some pictures of my little girls and said to myself, ’This is what you’re fighting for.’ I wore Williams down and knocked him out in the tenth round. After that, I feared no man.”
Alexis Arguello (on being counted out in his second fight against Aaron Pryor): “It’s hard to accept, but it’s good to accept. I did it with grace and just accepted that the guy beat me. Even though I did my best, in the tenth round I accepted it right there. I said, ‘This is too much. I won’t take it. I’ll just sit down and watch Richard Steele count to ten.’”
Johnny Nelson: “In boxing, if you’re a fighter, it’s all about you. It’s the chance to be completely selfish and not have to explain why you’re being completely selfish.”
Roger Mayweather: “Do I have injuries from boxing? To be honest, I don’t know. If you’ve had that many fights, somewhere along the line, something happens. I just don’t know what the fuck it was. But that’s the risk of doing it. I took my chances.”
When John Duddy retired from boxing in 2011, the popular Irish middleweight decided to try his hand at acting.
“I always liked storytelling,” Duddy explains. “When I was growing up, we had a family movie night at home once a week when we watched a movie on the VCR. The first movie I saw in a theater was The Empire Strikes Back. My mother took me, and I loved it. It was like seeing my dreams on the screen or my playing with my toys come to life on the screen. Movies are incredible. Wherever you are in your life, they can take you away to another world.”
Since leaving the sweet science, Duddy has had roles in a half-dozen films and several plays. He also helped Robert DeNiro prepare for the fight scenes in Grudge Match, which led to John landing a bit part as Ken Buchanan in Hands o
f Stone. But Duddy’s most significant film role to date is in Emerald City, which had its American premiere in New York on March 26, 2017.
Emerald City is a simply made, moving film about a crew of Irish construction workers in New York. To say that it was made on a small budget would be overstating the case.
“Not many people believed we could make the movie,” Duddy says. “But Colin Broderick [who wrote, directed, co-produced, and stars in Emerald City] made it happen. Each character has his own story. None of them is as happy as you’d want them to be. For most of them, their lives are work, drink, bed. But they get on with their lives.”
“Working on the movie was an incredible experience,” Duddy continues. “Watching people put it all together on a shoestring budget. Working with young producers, a young director, the other actors, the technical people, everyone dedicated to their art. The friendships I’ve made working on this movie will last forever.”
As for the future, Duddy says, “No one knows where any of us who worked on Emerald City will go in our lives. I’m still with The Padded Wagon [a moving company in New York]. I lift things up, carry them someplace, and put them down again. They’re great about my work schedule being flexible. Whenever there’s an audition, a rehearsal, a performance, they let me off.”
“If Grainne [John’s wife, who had a small role in Emerald City] and I can live our lives as actors, that would be great. Right now, just like I did with boxing, we’re starting at the bottom and trying to work our way to the top. To make it in acting, you have to have talent. You have to be dedicated. You have to be dependable. And you need the breaks. But one way or another, I’ll always do this. Acting is amazing to me. You read something. You think you have it in your mind. Then you work on it with other people, you learn from each other, and it grows into something else. I love it.”
Rosie Perez has enjoyed a storied career as an actress and been a prominent supporter of progressive social causes. She’s also a fervent fight fan.
Looking back on her many years as a fan, Perez recently recalled, “I did not have an emotional attachment to a fight until Wilfred Benitez fought Sugar Ray Leonard. Years later, when I met Leonard, I quivered. It was at the Boxing Hall of Fame in Nevada. Ray goes, ‘Are you shaking?’ I said, ‘Yeah.’ He goes, ‘Why?’ I said, ‘Because I’m meeting Sugar Ray Leonard, the guy who defeated Wilfred Benitez.’ He looked at me and he goes, ‘Who are you?’ And I said, ‘I cried that Wilfred lost. But I felt guilty because I really wanted you to win and I felt like I was betraying my heritage because Wilfred is a Puerto Rican.’”
Ray Leonard has his own memories of fighting Benitez. And he remembers his conversation with Perez. In fact . . .
“I vividly remember that conversation with Rosie,” Leonard says. “I got teary eyed because I saw the honesty in her eyes.”
Pennsylvania State Athletic Commission executive director Greg Sirb is on the short list of administrators who have a full understanding of how to regulate boxing. Sirb is passionate about the sweet science and recently directed his passion toward the State of Montana.
Section 6303(a) of the federal Professional Boxing Safety Act provides that no person may promote or participate in a professional boxing match held in a state that does not have a boxing commission unless the match is supervised by a boxing commission from another state and subjected to the regulatory guidelines published by the Association of Boxing Commissions as well as any other professional boxing regulations and requirements promulgated by the supervising state.
“Montana started putting a commission together about a year ago,” Sirb says. “But it’s not up and running yet. Montana does not have a working commission in any sense that I’m aware of.”
Under federal law, the Association of Boxing Commissions is supposed to notify the state attorney general in any state where an illegal fight card takes place. Sirb has written to Attorney General Tim Fox at the Montana Department of Justice on numerous occasions to voice his concern.
Most recently, on March 8, 2017, Sirb wrote, “I am inquiring about the professional boxing matches that have occurred in Montana over the past sixteen months. Since Montana does not have a working Athletic Commission to regulate these events, the Professional Boxing Safety Act of 1996 takes effect. This law specifically states that, if the state where the boxing is to be held does not have a commission, the event must be supervised by another state commission. This is federal law. Your state has had at least five pro boxing events where there was no Commission to supervise—a direct violation of federal law. It is only a matter of time before some boxer gets hurt.”
Sirb’s March 8 letter to Fox specifically referenced a fight card that was scheduled to take place at the Shrine Auditorium in Billings, Montana, on March 25.
Seven fights were contested on the March 25 card in Billings. The main event saw local favorite Duran Caferro (15–1), who has fought one fighter with a winning record in his entire career, take on Cheyenne Zeigler (3–12), who’d lost his seven most recent fights by knockout. Caferro knocked Zeigler out in the third round.
In the featured undercard bout, Eric Hempstead (5–0, 5 KOs) fought for what was described as the “vacant Montana State Heavyweight Title.” Hempstead’s previous five opponents have a career total of one win among them. His adversary on March 25, Warren Brocky, fit that profile. Brocky entered the bout with an 0–2 record, both of his losses coming by knockout. Hempstead knocked Brocky out in the first round.
The fights in Billings were promoted by Silver Wolf Fight Promotions, which is run by thirty-nine-year-old Jon Jay Mount. Adding to the questionable nature of the proceedings, Mount fought on the card and knocked out 0-and-4 Andrew Howk in the third stanza.
“It’s an outrage,” Sirb says. “Montana has had a least five illegal cards that I know of. Who referees? Who judges? Who’s performing medicals on the fighters?”
Eric Sell is communications director for the Montana Department of Justice. On March 23, Sell told this writer, “There is a boxing commission as defined by federal law under the Montana Department of Labor and Industry, but I don’t know what they’re doing.”
Sell referred further questions to Derek Sherlock (a supervisor for the Licensing Bureau in the Business Standards Division of the Montana Department of Labor and Industry). Sherlock did not return telephone calls regarding the matter.
Meanwhile, it’s worth noting that the Montana Annotated Code provides that the Montana Department of Labor “may appoint a representative to act specifically on behalf of the department” at boxing events.
Montana law further states that “the representative may be a volunteer” and that “the department may accept private donations for the costs of administering the boxing program.”
Finally, a doctor need not be present at ringside for fights in Montana. A “licensed physician assistant” or “licensed advanced practice registered nurse” will suffice.
And it’s not just Montana.
Michigan has a proud boxing tradition. Joe Louis lived in Detroit. Thomas Hearns came out of the famed Kronk Gym in Detroit and fought thirty-four times in Michigan.
“Michigan now sends one inspector to each show,” Sirb states. “One inspector. That’s their entire staff on site. There’s no way you can properly regulate a fight card with one inspector. And in Michigan, the promoter now assigns the referees, judges, and doctors. The only limitation is that the referees, judges, and doctors have to be licensed by the Michigan commission.”
“That satisfies the Ali Act because technically there’s still a state commission in Michigan,” Sirb notes. “But it’s a disgrace. It’s ripe for abuse when a promoter chooses the referee and judges for a fight. And it adds to the dangers facing a fighter when the promoter is choosing the doctors.”
The dictionary defines “empathy” as “the ability to understand and share the feelings of another.”
It’s remarkable how little empathy most boxing fans feel for fighters. We’re happy when o
ur guy wins and disappointed when he loses; emotions that we experience in varying degree depending on how much we care about a particular fight to begin with. We’re more likely to be drawn into the elation of the winner than the pathos of the loser, perhaps because that’s what the television cameras are inclined to focus on. As a general rule, television gives sports fans more close-ups of the agony of defeat in the eyes of basketball players sitting on the bench as the clock ticks down that it does of a defeated fighter sitting on his stool after a loss.
So the next time you watch a fight, here’s something to remember. These aren’t wind-up toys or Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots. They aren’t computer-game figures on a monitor. These are real live people. A losing fighter hasn’t just lost a sports competition. His career and his earning potential have been damaged. And oftentimes, he has been beaten up.
To repeat: Beaten up. Try it sometime and see how you like it.
So don’t feel sorry for yourself the next time your guy loses. Feel sorry for the fighter.
The New York State Athletic Commission remains adrift in matters large and small.
The commission website is so out of date (as of September 9, 2017) that Eric Bentley is still listed as director of boxing with an accompanying biographical sketch, although Bentley left the commission in early May. Similarly, Kim Sumbler is listed as MMA project coordinator, although Sumbler became NYSAC executive director months ago.
So many NYSAC deputy commissioners are now assigned to each fight card at taxpayer expense that one might wonder if each deputy commissioner is responsible for monitoring a different ring rope.
More troubling, the Department of State (which oversees the NYSAC) has adopted a “circle the wagons” mentality that interferes with the lawful flow of information and the implementation of progressive reforms.
On June 23, 2017, the Department of State refused to honor a Freedom of Information Law request for a May 23, 2017, letter sent by New York State inspector general Catherine Leahy Scott to secretary of state Rossana Rosado on grounds that the letter contained “privileged” information within the meaning of the law.
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