BOXING IN MOURNING FOR SCOTT
Tragic Westgarth dies after victory
BoxINg has gone into mourning following the tragic death of Scott Westgarth after his gruelling victory in a Doncaster ring on Saturday night.
Westgarth, 31, was a late starter, only drawn to the ring four-and-ahalf years ago — no doubt by the excitement generated by what has become a boom in British boxing.
He was in it for the thrills and spills. Perhaps the frisson of risk and a sense of manly fulfilment. Not the money. Westgarth knew he was no Floyd Mayweather. The height of his ambition was a shot at the English light- heavyweight championship, a hope which was close to realisation when he outpointed Dec Spelman in a title eliminator on Saturday.
That modest dream died with him in the early hours of Sunday, at the hospital to which he was hurried after being harrowingly filmed in increasing distress during his post-fight interview.
This honest fighter knew he was no Anthony Joshua. But, like every boxer, great or smallhall, he was in it principally for the love of it.
No one outside Westgarth’s family and friends is feeling the pain more than the man in charge of British boxing.
Robert Smith, general secretary of the British Boxing Board of Control, arrived home from Nuremberg to be met by what he fears most. He said: ‘Every fatality is a disaster and I feel each one more deeply than the last. We do everything in our power to stop this happening, by working to make boxing safer and safer. But this is a dangerous sport and the boxers are aware of the issues.’
Smith keeps the board in the vanguard of health and safety regulation and is a tireless campaigner against drug abuse.
Fortunately for him and his sport, such tragedies occur much less frequently than the anti-boxing lobby would like us to believe.
Since Smith came into the job in 2009 there have been three fatalities in the British ring, namely Michael Norgrove, Mike Towell and now Westgarth.
That is an average of one every three years, which should be seen in the context of the board sanctioning 3,000 bouts in 280 promotions last year alone.
Boxing remains well down the list of most dangerous sports. It is 11th in various ‘rankings’. It is safer than auto racing, motorbike racing, horse racing, swimming and surfing.
But it is the social argument which is most persuasive against the charge that only in boxing — and other combat sports — do the contestants set out deliberately to harm each other.
Man is born with fighting instincts and here in Britain we are members of an historically warrior race. Few sociologists will deny that it is preferable for those urges to be channelled into a controlled sport which instils discipline — and, for the most part, mutual respect between the participants — rather than on to the streets.
The lives or futures of countless young men and women have been rescued by boxing. During this decade in which three British boxers have died, there have been more than 1,500 fatal stabbings in England and Wales.
Those figures are rising steeply and London Mayor Sadiq Khan accepts they would be even worse but for the influence of boxing, of which he is an avid supporter. There were 80 knife deaths in the capital during 2017. Two recorded on the night Scott Westgarth died brought the London toll to 15 this year.
And since attitudes towards boxing tend to be mired in class issues in this nation of animal lovers, it is worth noting that more than 1,500 racehorses have been put down at British courses in the last 10 years, 11 of them during the two most recent Cheltenham festivals.
The horses have no choice. Boxers do.