Day’s death further proof boxing outlived its time
Sport has ‘outlived its time’ as too many fighters injured or killed over the years
I never met Patrick Day nor saw him fight, but I’ve known him all my life.
He’s the man I watched standing at the sink to shave every morning, the man with the broken nose and knuckles so busted up they were like little bags of gravel.
He’s the man who took me in his old truck to see every fight card within a 50-mile radius.
Amateur or pro, it made no difference. Under the smoky haze, the blood and sweat flew when a fighter took a heavy punch and we could hear the heavy thud like a sack of potatoes when his body hit the canvas and watched the referee’s arm toll like a metronome as he counted “one … two … three …”
Patrick Day is all the Mexican-American fighters the old man trained for the Golden Gloves tournaments, the tough, little guys who gritted their teeth and took it when I did my job, which was to hurl a heavy medicine ball down into their stomachs.
He’s Ferd Hernandez, one of those western Nebraska fighters who almost became world champ.
Patrick Day is Benny “Kid” Paret, chopped down in a hail of punches by Emile Griffith on one of the few occasions when the writer Norman Mailer actually lived up to his own hype.
He’s Buster Drayton, losing his title to Matthew Hilton in a marathon bout at the Forum in a fight so brutal that when you looked away, you could still tell which fighter was throwing the punches: Hilton’s body blows sounded with a smack like a baseball bat hitting a side of beef.
He’s Mike Tyson telling us after a bout in Atlantic City that he had carried Tyrell Biggs for eight rounds “because when I hit him in the stomach he screamed like a woman and I liked to hear him scream.”
And Patrick Day is Muhammad Ali, talking to me for two solid hours in a hotel room in Halifax, a lifetime of punches already affecting his speech but his mind as sharp as ever.
Patrick Day was all those men and none of them. If he resembled any fighter I’ve known, it’s my friend Otis Grant — another accomplished, articulate college graduate. Grant got out in time, Day did not. Two days before the fight that would end his life, Day was answering the inevitable question: “Why would you box when there’s so much else you can do?”
“People look at me,” Day said, “look at my demeanour, and say, ‘Oh, you’re such a nice guy, well-spoken, why do you choose to box?’ It’s about what’s in your heart … I have a fighter’s soul, a fighter’s spirit, and I love this sport. Boxing makes me happy, that’s why I choose to do it.”
Patrick Day was a handsome, 27-year-old boxer, by all accounts a smiling, pleasant individual who was loved by everyone he met. He was knocked out with one minute and 40 seconds to go in his bout against Charles Conwell in Chicago on Oct. 12. He died four days later.
Day was a Haitian-American. His mother is a translator at the United Nations, his father a doctor. A former U.S. national champion in the welterweight class and an alternate for the 2012 Olympic team, Day boxed not because he had to but out of a love for the sport.
In the pros, he had earned a Top 10 ranking from all four major sanctioning bodies before losing a tough fight to Carlos Adames in June.
Still, he fought on. Day was the favourite going into the bout against Conwell, but he was floored with a left hook in the 10th round. His head bounced on the canvas, hard. The referee stopped the fight, but it was one blow too late.
Day died of his injuries, the fourth recorded death in boxing this year in a sport that averages 13 deaths a year worldwide. Conwell was distraught.
Boxing will go on. It always does. While a fighter lies in the hospital in critical condition, his promoter mumbles a few words of sympathy and goes right on shamelessly promoting other fights. It will go on, but it’s going to have to go on without me.
The last time I saw the old man, we talked in his hospital room and I thought he knew who I was. But as I left the room, I heard him say to the nurse: “That big fella that was just in here would make a helluva athlete.” After something like 200 fights, amateur and pro, his mind was in shadow land.
Boxing was my first sport. Every Friday night we huddled around the radio to hear the Friday Night Fights. Sandy Saddler, Willie Pep, Carmen Basilio, Gene Fullmer, the great Sugar Ray Robinson. When you’ve loved a sport that long, it isn’t easy to let go.
Sorry, Pop. I’ve seen enough. Boxing was about the only thing we had in common, but boxing has outlived its time.
Patrick Day was only the most recent boxer to die of his injuries. If it were up to me, he would be the last.
Day was the favourite going into the bout
... but he was floored with a left hook in the 10th round. His head bounced on the canvas, hard.