Dog Day Afternoon in Women’s Boxing: New Brizel Editorial
By Robert Brizel, Head Real Combat Media Boxing Correspondent
Mike Tyson bites off a piece of Evander Holyfield’s ear. Controversy sells tickets, however stupid. Nobody likes welterweight Adrien Broner, but when he sounds his mouth off, everybody watches his fights. Floyd Mayweather Jr. remains the greatest promoter of himself.
Were a fighter to earn money based on ability, then all professional athletes would get rich. Such is never the case. Hype, and more particularly, dirt, sells newspapers, magazines and gets internet clicks. In particular, we are in the digital media era, where people want to read bad news. It isn’t exactly like the song ‘Bad Boys, Bad Boys, What’ya Gonna Do?’ but life comes close in the athletic arena. Crazy violence is nuts. Whenever you watch a baseball game, good brawls always reach the front pages of the newspapers. Don’t forget the Madison Square Garden melee following the original Riddick Bowe versus Andrew Golota disqualification.
So, as human beings involved in professional sports, we must ask this question: does society encourage out of control behavior at sporting events? We all know controversy sells.
When it comes to women’s boxing, Amanda Serrano was the best name out there today before Claressa Shields came onto the women’s boxing scene, but let’s face it. Who cares? MMA is much bigger than boxing today. Everyone loves football. Big heavyweight bouts like a Tyson Fury, Andy Ruiz Jr. Anthony Joshua or Deontay Wilder are big ticket sellers at the moment. Besides Floyd, the lower divisions of boxing are not worth as much money to the fighters in them.
It should come as no surprise that nobody has had a major interest in women’s boxing. Along comes Claressa Shields, and promoter Dmitriy Salita has himself his first real talent and legitimate world champion. Television and the general public had embraced this human interest story as Shields rose up as a world champion. That is, until the façade of Claressa Shields came crashing down like Beauty and the Beast, with the beast unleashed.
Humpty Dumpty took an emotional fall when a member of the Claressa Shields entourage sucker-punched her opponent’s trainer, James Bashir Ali, after the weigh-in, on Friday, October 4, 2019, in Flint, Michigan. There was security present in the building at the time, because a security guard can be seen in the video after the assault. Security was not well-organized enough to prevent the occurrence. If adequate security had been in place, they would have either escorted James Bashir Ali, and the brother and sister of Claressa Shields he was arguing with at the weigh-in, out of the building and off the premises safely.
There are cultural differences between cultures this reporter does not purport to fully understand. However, with proper security protocols in place, the promoter and the venue, who have experience in such matters, should have anticipated the conflict could escalate. Egos collide, and when there are cultural differences, some cultures tend to be more emotionally disfocused than others. Also, some people let their emotions run too loosely and take things too personally than others. The point is when there are major cultural differences, they cannot and must not be ignored.
Verbal words exchanged at boxing weigh-ins are nothing new. It’s like a movie release being overhyped before the fact. The tragic picture of boxer Ivana Habazin crying over her trainer’s unconscious corpse has turned the boxing world upside down.
What actually happened?
Habazin said in a statement to Boxing Scene “security was nowhere to be found and club shows (she has fought in and attended) are run better” before blasting Shields and her entourage. “Claressa has a big mouth and the people around her like Claressa are always looking for trouble. Claressa and her team are classless. During the pre-fight weigh-in my coach wanted to look at Claressa’s weight. Her sister (and then her brother) and Bashir exchanged words. Her family and friends should have never been allowed on the stage.” Security was so lax, when you watch the video, an old man passed by in a walker during the verbal tirade. It has all the view of a silly soap opera got wrong.
During Thursday’s press conference, Shields said she was going to f*#k her up, in reference to Habazin, a former female world champion from Croatia who has a 20-3-0 record with seven knockouts. The issue was not limited to that Shields and her camp have been engaging in a nonstop issuance of disgusting egotistical threats to Habazin.
Habazin clarified her viewpoint. “We have been receiving threats, and people are saying I am scared to fight because Claressa is going to beat my ass. We don’t feel safe here. To Claressa I have this message for you. You can run your filthy mouth all you want. When my trainer (James Bashir Ali) recovers, it will be just you and me in the ring.”
The evil side of boxing got exposed in Michigan, and the whole world took notice. The dangers of cities of Detroit and Flint as Michigan venues showed their ugly heads. While boxing is nondiscriminatory, hate between both sides is not infrequent. It happened here, folks.
We’ve already seen the financial effects felt by New York State in the aftermath of Magomed Abdusalamov’s brain injury several years ago and subsequent lawsuits. James Ali Bashir is not comatose or brain dead, so he is lucky. His right side is swollen. His face got rearranged and had to be reconstructed due to multiple facial fractures. By his own description, his newly acquired blurred vision, damaged jaw, and brain troubles may end his career as a boxing trainer. His head impacted on the concrete floor after he was knocked out, and the blood and impact could have serious future complications. He is not out of the woods at Henry Ford Hospital in Michigan yet by any means. It should not have taken an incident like this for women’s boxing to gain attention. Boxing is meant to be a positive outlet, yet notoriety often dominates news reports. The moral of the story is people should have manners. I just think people some act like animals. The fisticuffs should be kept inside the ring. Otherwise, you will have multicultural mayhem and chaos. Trust me, you would not find it funny if you were there in the middle of it. It can become life and death in a heartbeat when people let their emotions get the best of them. There are no quick solutions and no easy answers.
We shouldn’t have to take out lives in our hands outside the ring. That’s f*#king crazy. If professional boxing rules have to be rewritten for press conferences and weigh-ins, then ABC Boxing and international boxing organizations will have to deal with it immediately.
Anything less, and repeat incidents could results in further tragedies-or-in the worst-case scenario-fatalities. Put proper security, rules, regulations and procedures in effect, or do not have boxing events at all. Security is meant for our protection. Having a few unarmed security guards in the building doesn’t do it. Security teams need to be in place, and properly trained to read the signals of conflict, to prevent problems from occurring or getting worse once egos collide and conflict starts. For he who does not understand the mistakes of the past is condemned to relive them. Boxing has gone through a great deal of rules changes since John L. Sullivan implemented gloved boxing, and Jack Dempsey initiated the neutral corner after a knockdown. Both lost their world heavyweight titles due to their own safety protocols. These rules have withstood the test of time because they were there for a reason.
As times change, old rules are modified, and new rules are implemented for good reason.
I have to ask this question too. Was there a metal screen for guns at Flint? Wake up already. The people in Flint were sleepwalking. Be alert trouble can happen anytime.
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