The death of boxer Mike Towell is an absolute tragedy. I had never heard of him before I read the story that he had been rushed to hospital after a fight in front of the bow-tied brigade at St Andrews Sporting Club in Glasgow. Towell later died, at the age of 25.
Stories of death and serious injury in the ring are rare these days given the medical safeguards that are in place. Every professional fight is attended by doctors, something that is hardly surprising since the very aim of the sport is to render your opponent unconscious. Luckily – and there is a huge amount of luck involved – boxers usually recover from being knocked out although it does not take a genius to work out that being hit around the head on a regular basis is not the best way to look after your brain.
I am not advocating banning the sport, of course I’m not. Whilst it is fundamentally different from other sports – there are not many sports where the objective is to hurt your opponent – you can still get hurt, sometimes fatally, playing just about anything. You can’t just ban every sport because someone gets injured. It’s the way of the world. But I do find boxing uncomfortable.
For every articulate ex pro like Carl Froch there is a mumbling, slurring Thomas Hearns. There are those who pretend that boxing isn’t dangerous, that somehow the fighter who can now barely speak his own name always sounded like that. In their hearts, they know that the noble art of boxing is a means to permanent brain damage. Gerald McLellan and Michael Watson suffer horribly through what happened in British boxing rings. They were unlucky but if they hadn’t have been fighting at all, they wouldn’t have been unlucky.
Boxing can be a good thing. The amateur clubs have provided a route to a different life for many poor boys who might otherwise have drifted into a world of petty crime, serious crime and almost certainly these days drugs. I get that. However, part of me wishes poor boys from rough estates might one day have a better opportunity of making their lives better than being punched in the head. The boys from the playing fields of Eton are not often found in the local boxing clubs.
Poor Mike Towell and his family. I hope that he died doing what he loved to do. But I am so sad for his partner and child, as well as the rest of his family and friends. I can barely imagine what they are going through now.
When I do watch a fight on TV, I find myself wincing when a fighter takes a big punch to the head whilst the audience in the auditorium roars in support. I am no medical expert, but when you get very hard in the head, there is a fair chance you will end up concussed. In football or rugby, you are assessed for concussion and if there are any signs, that is the end of your game. In boxing, you hang on to the end of the round, trying to clear your senses, stumble back to your corner whilst the trainer tries to bring you round. And then, still concussed, you carry on being hit in the head.
Boxers are some of the bravest men in the world. They are on their own when the bell goes and they know they will get punched by the other man. I couldn’t do it, wouldn’t want my kids do it, would never actually pay to watch a fight. It’s the ghoulish fascination, I suppose, and sometimes it can be beautiful. For Mike Towell boxing was fatal.
