Slurred speech

[high tower 1]

As I've got older I certainly struggle to make a good argument against boxing being banned. I wouldn't want my kids to box.

Yeah very many sad stories. Maybe a shot amateur career but more than that is difficult

If I had kids, I wouldn't mind them boxing amateur, but I wouldn't want them boxing pro unless they were good enough to guarantee decent money, which these days probably means at least making Team GB and doing well at that level. The price of failure and the odds of it are too high.

Being a full time pro boxer is like being a singer / artist. You’re unlikely to make anything unless a red hot amateur. Much better advised to get a trade.

[JamesPhilips]

As I've got older I certainly struggle to make a good argument against boxing being banned. I wouldn't want my kids to box.

Yeah very many sad stories. Maybe a shot amateur career but more than that is difficult

If I had kids, I wouldn't mind them boxing amateur, but I wouldn't want them boxing pro unless they were good enough to guarantee decent money, which these days probably means at least making Team GB and doing well at that level. The price of failure and the odds of it are too high.

Totally agree.

[jameswilson]

Dave Allen.

[polecateddy]

Dave Allen.

I’d think it’s fighters like Dave Allen who end up with a lot of damage. He’s often matched against much better fighters, he doesn’t train properly and he already thinks he has brain damage. He’s likely to end up a mess!

[HomicideHenry]

Back when gloves were incredibly small or non-existent, slurred speech and other things were never documented until the sport was "juiced up" where rounds had durations and gloves got bigger.

Which is why for the longest time you always saw the old timers rely heavily on body shots rather than headshots because it was high risk to throw headshots because the probability of breaking your hands was so high.

Call me crazy but bring back the small gloves again. You won't be seeing people throwing as many power punches, etc--- therefore the risk for brain damage decreases.

[Controversial]

These situations are really sad to me…. I sometimes think I shouldn’t watch boxing….

As I've got older I certainly struggle to make a good argument against boxing being banned. I wouldn't want my kids to box.

Amateur boxing at under age level gives a lot too. Great health , work ethic , confidence. Pro boxing is a different kettle of fish.

Yes some amateur boxing where head shots are limited I wouldn't have an issue with, as you say there are other benefits including learning how to defend yourself. But further than that I wouldn't be happy, only a small percentage of pro fighters retire both healthy and financially secure and even then the risk of CTE issues down the line cannot be ruled out.

[Boxingnut]

Look at one of the best defensive boxers, Wilfred Benetiz, now needs full time care. Very, very sad.

[jameswilson]

Dave Allen.

I’d think it’s fighters like Dave Allen who end up with a lot of damage. He’s often matched against much better fighters, he doesn’t train properly and he already thinks he has brain damage. He’s likely to end up a mess!

Bracamonte wasn’t much better than him and I think that fight and the David price fight will have taken a hell of a lot out of him. Took a pasting for multiple rounds (10-11 rounds in the price fight.)

[HomicideHenry]

Look at one of the best defensive boxers, Wilfred Benetiz, now needs full time care. Very, very sad.

I think a major contributing factor to that is Benetiz was constantly dehydrating himself to make weight. That is an effect what almost killed Gerald McClellan, the dehydration and rehydration process took a lot of fluid away from the brain.

I think that was one unintended consequence of the creation of so many weight classes in boxing, when in the past catchweight bouts were more common and more healthier for the combatants (imho).

That being said Floyd Patterson was quite the defensive fighter and ended up getting Alzheimer's and dehydration and rehydration was not really an issue for him because he was a heavyweight.

[JamesPhilips]

Look at one of the best defensive boxers, Wilfred Benetiz, now needs full time care. Very, very sad.

I think a major contributing factor to that is Benetiz was constantly dehydrating himself to make weight. That is an effect what almost killed Gerald McClellan, the dehydration and rehydration process took a lot of fluid away from the brain.

I think that was one unintended consequence of the creation of so many weight classes in boxing, when in the past catchweight bouts were more common and more healthier for the combatants (imho).

That being said Floyd Patterson was quite the defensive fighter and ended up getting Alzheimer's and dehydration and rehydration was not really an issue for him because he was a heavyweight.

Floyd Patterson got battered all over the ring many times. I think he was dropped more often than any other world or at least heavyweight champ ever

[Steveh583]

fukk me I've just watched a Kevin Mitchell interview. he sounds awful. very sad.

[rhino222]

I don't feel Dave Allen sounds that bad considering the shots the big fella has taken. Please have a listen to Coyle (listen on his Instagram) and Mitchell (was briefly interviewed by that annoying dark haired Essex girl during one of the fight camps, number 3 I think)

I'm not sure if he fed her cock afterwards....

[KiwiRider]

Kev recons he spent 180,000 squids in 9 months on booze...

[margaret thatcher]

kev needs his own closed captioning service there

[maverick23]

kev needs his own closed captioning service there

I always struggled to understand Kevin. I’d say he’s slightly worse but not massively. The amount of booze (and probably other stuff) he’s had won’t help either.

[JamesPhilips]

Kev recons he spent 180,000 squids in 9 months on booze...

That's about £660 a day. If the average pint was 3.50 then, that's about 190 pints a day.
Not even Andre the Giant could do that let alone a featherweight. I reckon if it's true he must've been sniffing an awful lot alongside that, or drinking crystal every day. Or he was probably buying all the hangers on a lot of booze.

[Steveh583]

Kev recons he spent 180,000 squids in 9 months on booze...

That's about £660 a day. If the average pint was 3.50 then, that's about 190 pints a day.
Not even Andre the Giant could do that let alone a featherweight. I reckon if it's true he must've been sniffing an awful lot alongside that, or drinking crystal every day. Or he was probably buying all the hangers on a lot of booze.

That was my first thought. He was mates with all the Essex coke heads for a bit if I remember. I suppose if you allow for hotel rooms and flights as well...

[JamesPhilips]

Kev recons he spent 180,000 squids in 9 months on booze...

That's about £660 a day. If the average pint was 3.50 then, that's about 190 pints a day.
Not even Andre the Giant could do that let alone a featherweight. I reckon if it's true he must've been sniffing an awful lot alongside that, or drinking crystal every day. Or he was probably buying all the hangers on a lot of booze.

That was my first thought. He was mates with all the Essex coke heads for a bit if I remember. I suppose if you allow for hotel rooms and flights as well...

Yeah and probably brasses, as the cock feeder must get the horn after all that sniff.....

[dookus]

I think with Mitchell it's going to be a combination of the wars and drugs. Some kinds of drug abuse do later result in speech problems. We all knew pill casualties in the 00s who weren't that old, and Sean Ryder / Bez were in their 40s when they first started to have trouble putting sentences together.

[Coco]

I read once that Kev used to call birds over in clubs to ask them if they liked his shoes.

When they looked down he would have his cock out!

[high tower 1]

I read once that Kev used to call birds over in clubs to ask them if they liked his shoes.

When they looked down he would have his cock out!

No wonder he used prossies so much

[Steveh583]

That's about £660 a day. If the average pint was 3.50 then, that's about 190 pints a day.
Not even Andre the Giant could do that let alone a featherweight. I reckon if it's true he must've been sniffing an awful lot alongside that, or drinking crystal every day. Or he was probably buying all the hangers on a lot of booze.

That was my first thought. He was mates with all the Essex coke heads for a bit if I remember. I suppose if you allow for hotel rooms and flights as well...

Yeah and probably brasses, as the cock feeder must get the horn after all that sniff.....

[freddy73]

Did anyone see Anthony Crolla on BT Box Office over the weekend?

Hope I'm wrong and he was just tired, but he sounded a little slurry to me.

[high tower 1]

Did anyone see Anthony Crolla on BT Box Office over the weekend?

Hope I'm wrong and he was just tired, but he sounded a little slurry to me.

The concrete block he got over the head won’t have helped. I remember thinking that would be him out of boxing at the time.

[stujones]

What I cannot understand is why fighters with obvious slurred speech continue to pass medicals and brain scans - surely it shows up on there - particularly in MRI scans.

How James' Toney got a licence to fight on the UK prizefighter was beyond me. Tommy Hearns for his 12 round bout with Nate Miller also was a surprise, although Journalists at the time attributed Hearns' speech more to nose injuries than a truer slurring.

Graham Earl as noted again I am not sure how he passed a brain scan.

It is an interesting topic - how some people can have a long career (e.g. George Foreman - and he took some head shots at the end of his career) and still sounds fluid - Jim Watt is another obviously still crystal clear and well spoken. Then you have others, like Holyfield, who started to stammer and have long pauses very early in his career - but hasn't shown any deterioriation since and then you get others who sound punch drunk at a young age - Riddick Bowe, Graham Earl.