Can you imagine answering a job advertisement worded this way? Yet that is the way a boxing career can end.
Boxing is a mean business and for many young men who enter the Prize Ring, the outcome is disappointing. Joe Frazier said words to the affect, "you can get your brain shook and your money took".
Yet Angelo Dundee opens a new gym at age 89 years and Don King carries on his promotional business at a similar advanced aged. The difference being that these two chose early on NOT to be the participant taking the punches. Angelo tells his boy to get out there and win. Don collects the cash paid by the eager fans of this 'hurtin' game". (Sugar Ray Robinson titled boxing as a hurting game when asked about the death in the ring.)
It is hard to not feel guilty being a fan of a sport that can leave a great champion like Gerald McClellan blind, deaf and broke with no investigation of which promoter ended up with Gerald's money. Why is these promoters are able to continue victimizing mostly disadvantaged young men and in women.
Teddy Atlas is one person who tries to fight corruption in the game and I wish him luck.
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