LAST month, I watched the movie Concussion, which starred Will Smith as the Nigerian forensic pathologist Dr. Bennet Omalu who uncovered a devastating but unknown injury common among professional American football players called the “chronic traumatic encephalopathy” (CTE). Smith won distinctive awards for this film: Best Actor from the African-American Film Critics Association and Actor of the Year from Hollywood Film Awards, among others.
Despite its dramatic long-term impact on the athletes, CTE is less devastating than the concussion that boxers receive on the ring, which often leads to quick death or permanent disability. We have a few cases of boxer deaths in the country. We have 21-year-old Karlo Maquinto, an undefeated flyweight fighter in 2012. We have 24-year-old Lito Sisnorio in 2007. Cebu City had its own tragedy in the 2009 career-ending brain injury of Z “The Dream” Gorres, a flyweight upcomer in the ALA Gym stable.
Researchers Mutsago, Mametja and Grootboom reported in the World Medical Journal last March that in South Africa, a township (Mdnatsane) raised its youngsters in boxing with such fervor that it looked like a religion to them.
Like American football, boxing is a “collision” (contact) sport wherein athletes must hit each other either as the rule of the game (e.g. boxing or mixed martial arts) or an inevitable result of playing the game (e.g. football). Boxing is unique for its inherent intent to harm the opponent. The intent is deliberate and expected. Knockouts are hailed as phenomenal performances, while point wins are booed as boring. Distinctly, the head is the favored target (well-trained boxers do not go down with body hits).
This norm of head hitting to win the game inevitably leads to chronic brain injury like those seen among football players in the Smith movie or to a death-dealing brain damage like those among Filipino boxers stated above. The British Journal of Sports Medicine reported that 89.8 percent of boxing injuries are found in the head/neck/face region, particularly the eye region (45.8 percent) or facial area (51 percent).
Mutsago, Mametja and Grootboom reported that repeated trauma to the brain can result to brain injuries and related neurological complications, which can be long-term in effect, such as neurodegenerative disease (e.g. Parkinson’s or Alzheimer’s). Technically, these are similar traumas suffered by the football players in the movie, which were attributed to Parkinson’s or Alzheimer’s and that Dr. Omalu revealed to be head-injury related.
While the fortune factor is an understandable motive for boxers to take the fatal risks, it remains hard to justify for boxing fans to enjoy the sight of harming another human being for fun. The value side is the alarming part. Perhaps, it is the wrong kind of fun.