Yesterday Badou Jack suffered one of the worst cuts I have ever seen in a boxing match when he faced off against Marcus Browne. The cut occurred after an accidental clash of heads in the 7th round. To be honest, the word cut doesn’t do it justice, it was huge.
Remarkably, the fight wasn’t stopped and Badou Jack somehow managed to continue fighting for another five rounds, but he eventually lost on points to Marcus Browne after going the distance. Even after he continued to get hurt, the fight wasn’t stopped. It turned into a bloodbath, so much so the referee looked like this at the end of the fight.
I can’t get my head around how the fight wasn’t stopped by either the referee, his corner, or the doctor. Letting that cut continue to take the punishment for another 5 rounds was dangerous. He could have sustained serious head damage from that.
Boxing needs to protect its fighters, which I thought it would have been doing now, especially with the recent high profile injury to Nick Blackwell after he suffered a near-fatal injury against Chris Eubank Jr back in 2016.
The referee from last night needs to be dragged in front of an independent panel and questioned on why he didn’t stop the fight. And the same goes for his corner team. You don’t have to be a medical professional to see how serious that cut was.
Luckily for Badou Jack, it looks like he didn’t end up with any serious injuries that we know of except from the 24 stitches he needed to seal the cut. But questions certainly need to be asked of how much is boxing doing to protect the well-being of its fighters. Badou Jack later posted this on his twitter, addressing his fans.
I am a warrior and will never quit, but didn’t realize the severity of the gash. I dedicated this fight to the refugee children across the world who fight a much tougher fight than I did tonight. I will continue to fight for them until the end, In shaa Allah.
— Badou Jack (@BadouJack) January 20, 2019
Alhamdulillah!
Featured Image by Thomas Hawk. Displayed under Creative Commons.
