More risk than middle-aged brains can take?
TORONTO — Early Sunday morning, when news circulated that Montreal-based light-heavyweight Adonis Stevenson was in critical condition following his knockout loss to Oleksandr Gvozdyk, play-by-play commentator Barry Tompkins felt empathy. His adult son still lives with after-effects of a traumatic brain injury suffered as a teenager.
Local boxing trainer Chris Johnson, who considers Stevenson a close friend, heard the news and remembered his own career-ending injury. A knockout loss in 2001 resulted in a subdural hematoma.
And, when Bernard Hopkins found out, he reflected on the risks boxers assume. The retired middleweight champ often hears non-boxers claim they’d gladly absorb a few punches for an eight-figure payday, but points out civilians only say that because they don’t recognize what’s at stake.
Hopkins stresses that he, like Stevenson, accepted the risks that accompany the sport, and courted still more danger by fighting deep into middle age. Where Hopkins won a world title at 46, Stevenson is a 41-year-old father of five. Even as Stevenson lays comatose and faces a hazy future, Hopkins says he, like all pro fighters, was clear about the sport’s perils and comfortable confronting them.
“In the fight business we understand that, when we sign that bout agreement, it could well be a death warrant, too,” Hopkins said. “It’s what we do. It’s who we are. We’re risk takers. That’s the separation, for those who don’t appreciate what we do.”
Officials at l’Hôpital l’Enfant Jesus in Quebec City confirmed in a news conference Wednesday that Stevenson underwent brain surgery Saturday night and remained in a medically induced coma, in stable condition and breathing via a respirator.
Before Stevenson fought in Toronto in mid-May, he told reporters he planned to fight until his mid-40s. But concussion researcher Dr. Charles Tator points out that advancing age makes athletes’ brains more vulnerable to the punishment boxing inflicts.
“There are a number of ways the brain reacts, and the older brain doesn’t take it as well,” said Tator, head of the Canadian Concussion Clinic at Toronto Western Hospital. “The younger brain has more recovery potential. We don’t really know exactly why. We don’t really understand the mechanisms of recovery.”
Stevenson competed evenly on Saturday with Gvozdyk, a 31-year-old challenger from Ukraine. Gvozdyk landed a right to the jaw early that appeared to drop Stevenson, but the referee ruled it a slip. After struggling in the middle rounds Stevenson landed his signature shot — a thunderous left hand he calls The Superman Punch — and sent Gvozdyk stumbling.
But Gvozdyk resumed control in the 11th, battering the champion until forcing him into a corner and unloading one last salvo, punctuated by a right hand to the forehead. Stevenson crumpled to the canvas, and referee Michael Griffin waved the fight off.
“I can’t medically say that’s the one that caused it,” said Tompkins, a 40-year veteran of boxing broadcasts. “But that last punch was pretty crushing.”
Johnson suspects the real damage came during Stevenson’s brutal 12-round brawl against Badou Jack at the Air Canada Centre in May. With 10 seconds remaining, Jack landed a vicious right uppercut that whiplashed Stevenson’s head. He finished the bout on his feet, but even hardened fight game veterans marvelled at the violence.
“This is one of the best lightheavyweight fights I’ve seen in a long time,” said Stevenson’s trainer, Javan (Sugar) Hill.
“(But) it’s not the kind of fight I really like. I like to think first of the fighter’s safety.”
By the time Hill and an exhausted Stevenson addressed the post-fight news conference, talk had already turned to whom the fighter should face next. Johnson says we should have asked a different set of questions about a middle-aged boxer minutes after the toughest bout of his career.
“It went the distance and it seemed like nobody got hurt,” Johnson said. “This business is about money. Everybody’s asking about the rematch. They’re not (asking) how does the fighter feel? How is the fighter doing?”
Dr. Tator says science supports Johnson’s theory that Stevenson could have entered Saturday’s bout with latent brain trauma.
While fighters must pass a battery of neurological tests to gain a licence, Dr. Tator says lasting damage can linger at levels undetectable by MRIs and CT scans. Dr. Tator points out the Canadian Concussion Clinic can test patients with a radioactive tracer that binds to a protein called P-Tau, which accumulates on damaged brain tissue.
That test, he says, yields better information about whether an athlete can safely return to competition.
“If we had done that to this man, I wonder what we might have seen,” Tator said. “When you take a beating in May and fight again in December, has your brain really recovered?”
On Wednesday afternoon, Dr. Alexis Turgeon told reporters Stevenson’s outlook spans “the whole spectrum,” from death to complete recovery.
Johnson spent a week in hospital after his subdural hematoma, but says feelings of nausea and weakness persisted for nearly half a year afterward.
He also says he was lucky. Korean boxer Duk Koo Kim died from a subdural hematoma after a 1982 title bout with Ray Mancini, and is one of a long list of boxers to suffer fatal brain injuries in the ring.
Tompkins’ son underwent surgery and a medically induced coma after a fall from a skateboard. These days, Tompkins says, he functions with the help of medication, but has almost no short-term memory.
“I can really empathize with what Adonis’s wife and family are going through now,” Tompkins said. “It’s not pretty. It’s not fun.”
Stevenson’s injury has renewed debate about boxing’s future, but retired fighters such as Hopkins and Johnson say those discussions don’t account for the special relationship between boxers and their sport.
Stevenson dabbled in boxing as a teenager in Montreal, before his involvement with a prostitution ring landed him in prison. Upon his release, he says boxing accepted him unconditionally, and gave him an opportunity to succeed where most of society only offered judgment.
Johnson recovered from his brain injury and headed straight back to the gym, where he now sees himself as a teacher and a steward tasked with protecting athletes who willingly risk their lives.
“The sport is the sport, and you do it for your own reasons,” he said. “You can’t hate the sport. When you go to war, you go to war with your own conscience. But I don’t hate it. I love it because it’s what’s given me what I have.”