By Jamie Eskdale: There cannot be a sadder site in professional sport than the boxer who still plying his trade well past his sell by date. Being defeated by men who only 2 years earlier couldn’t lace their gloves.
Growing up my favorite fighter was Roy Jones Jnr. In my eyes nobody could hold a candle to the 4 weight world champion. His finest moment arguably came when he defeated John Ruiz to win the WBA Heavyweight title. John Ruiz was nothing special but to jump from light heavyweight and win a world heavyweight title is special.
So to see him still actively fighting nearly 11 years on is nothing short of alarming.
Though to me at this moment in time the sight of once great ‘Sugar’ Shane Mosley still fighting and taking defeats off of the likes of Anthony Mundine is quite upsetting. No disrespect to Mundine but Mosley shouldn’t be losing to this calibre of fighter.
This isn’t a new phenomenon though. Look through boxing history and it is littered with similar stories.
Another ‘Sugar’ this time Ray Leonard had numerous comebacks with perhaps the low point at 40 years old coming in his only stoppage against Hector Camacho.
Indeed it prompted this response from one of his advisers,
‘Had he been a horse, he would have never been allowed past the gate’.
Seeing Mike Tyson being defeated by the like of Danny Williams and Kevin McBride are sights that we should never have been exposed to.
This begs the question, who is to blame?
Is it the fault of the fighters who should know when the time is up? I would say partly but if you have money problems and boxing is the only thing you know how to do then it is only natural you would lace on the gloves again.
The major responsibility lies with the governing bodies. The governing bodies who sanction way past their best fighters competing and really endangering their selves.
But where do you draw the line I hear you ask. Fighters peak at different ages. Different fighting styles dictate how much damage a fighter takes. Look at Bernard Hopkins he is doing just fine at the ripe old age of 49. Guys like Bernard though are the exception to the rule and obviously with the advancements of sports science and fighters being more aware of what is good for their bodies and what isn’t we will see more and more fighters boxing into their forties.
So quite obviously one set of rigid rules won’t work here.
So putting the likes of Hopkins to one side, say Shane Mosley given his obvious decline in recent years wants to fight the answer should just be a clear no. No governing body, state commission or anyone else in a position to block this should allow it.
Ethically it is not right watching these type of fighters fighting. We need more of a stand taken by people in higher positions who should be putting a fighters’ health before Dollar signs.
I know there will be people reading this sneering at it thinking it’s their life let them get on with it. But no there needs to be a stand.
This is a very real problem in professional boxing and another reason why the game needs restructured. As the saying goes Rome wasn’t built in a day and small change is better than no change. If even a small step could be made towards trying to eradicate then we would be heading in the right direction.
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