By Matthias Predonzan: FIRST ANTECEDENT: on March 26th 2016, after 12 rounds of emotionally intense and physically harsh fighting, Nick Backwell lost his British middle-weight title to Chris Eubank Jr. The fight was intense but not very competitive, because Nick Blackwell was overwhelmed by his contender’s superior boxing skill.
Unfortunately Nick collapsed just after the final bell and was rushed into the hospital where a bleed in the skull was diagnosed.
Boxing community, fellow boxers, included Chris Eubank Jr. and fans, spent days in trepidation with Nick’s family for his endangered life. Nick was strong and lucky and able to wake up a few days later and to have a very good and fast recovery.
SECOND ANTECEDENT: on November 26th 2016, Nick Blackwell was rushed into the hospital suffering a swelling in the brain and underwent a surgery to remove part of his skull to relieve the pressure. Again, he was strong and lucky enough to wake up from his coma, even if this time his condition appears to be more difficult than after the March’s hospitalization.
THIRD ANTECEDENT: Appeared that Blackwell illness was due to a sparring session that he had in Bristol, with professional light-heavyweight boxer Hasam Karkardi, at the presence of trainer Liam Wilkins.
I discovered short time ago about this sad news, also because it didn’t circulate out of the UK. Nonetheless, I believe that the situation can inspire some deep and useful thoughts not about boxing intended as the fight and immediate post-fight reaction but about boxers’ psychology and the boxing world’s contradictions and bigotry.
The British Boxing Board of Control BBBofC suspended for 6 months Nick’s sparring partner for the unhappy session and banned from boxing the trainer Liam Wilkins.
A prominent British promoter declared to a national Radio Broadcast that the episode was dreadful and that anyone involved should have their licenses taken away because they certainly didn’t have Nick Blackwell’s or boxing’s best interests at heart.
It is funny that a promoter is exploring trainer’s and boxer’s hearts to understand which interest they had into them, instead of Nick Blackwell’s good one.
“Interest”: this is a really intriguing word, with quite a lot of very different and almost oxymoron meanings.
I keep asking to myself which interest they could had had, involving them self in an illegal session of sparring with a boxer that had his license revoked.
Revoked for good, without any possibility of reinstatement in the future.
Everybody who has interest in boxing is guilty when a boxer gets injured: Both, those who have interest in the excitement of watching the fight, and those who have it in the excitement of fighting are interested and guilty. These are emotionally-interested entities.
Fans do not get any material gain from the match they watch; on the contrary, usually they pay money for their entertainment.
Fighters get paid, usually very little, sometimes well, to leave their sweat and health in the ring.
And then, as in any activity of life, you have a lot of other entities not involved in the substance of the action – fighting/watching – but in the material advantages surrounding the action itself.
Entities that initially didn’t exist at all and that have an interest that is not emotional but material. First of all, the promoters.
At the beginning there were 2 men fighting. Then somebody fund this activity interesting and exciting and stopped to watch them.
Only after a while somebody saw the different kind of interest to exploit.
I tried also but failed, to understand why the sparring partner got 6 month of suspension and the trainer a life ban. To me should be the same. They are both in major age and both professionals. And both acted in the interest of Nick Blackwell.
Yes, I used the same word that the promoter used but with a meaning that, I believe, he didn’t want or could understand but that I’m sure, all the fans are reading do understand very well.
The total lack of logic relation between the two penalties inflicted from the BBBofC to the sparring partner and the trainer are maybe explainable with the intent of giving a strong dissuading example – but a legitimate suspect on the disparity in treatment could rise from the fact that a suspended fighter cannot fight and produce what he is intended to produce-.
I cannot really find any limit to the moral indecency on a promoter that is using also the platform around this dramatic story to promote himself; with the aggravating factor of distributing moral judgments on the very same people that he is exploiting for business.