I remember the night Jimmy Garcia slipped into a coma. I remember thinking that the beating he took from the fists of Gabriel Ruelas never looked that bad, never appeared life threatening.
Thirteen days later, Garcia died after being taken off life support systems.
When Beethavean Scottland went into a coma following his Tuesday night fight with George Jones, fight people immediately began to look for answers, as they should have. But when all the searching and questioning and finger pointing are done, when all the blame has been cast by Monday morning quarterbacks, the final conclusion you come to is that prize fighting is not an exact science. Like riding bulls, racing cars or catching footballs, it offers no promises and comes at a risk. All you can do is try to minimize that risk without killing the sport.
Some fighters can take the kind of beating Scottland suffered in his fight with Jones, shake it off like a bad hangover and be back in the gym the next day. And they'd curse referee Arthur Mercante Jr. for stepping in and stopping it.
Others can't take it, or won't.
Should Mercante have stopped the fight earlier in the 10th round? If he could go back now and change it, of course he would. He's been accused of letting other fights go on too long. But that doesn't mean if it happened again in another fight, he would do it any different.
Maybe Mercante is like a lot of us. He believes a fighter wants every chance to win, or at least wants the chance to finish the fight. You stop it only when someone starts taking a beating without fighting back, when he becomes hurt or defenseless.
Should we blame the doctors at ringside? Sure. They're always easy targets. Unfortunately, they can't peek inside a man's head between rounds and see how much damage is being done. Most of them have never slipped on a pair of gloves. And who do you use as your prototype for stopping a fight? Arturo Gatti or Bruce ``The Mouse'' Strauss?
Should we blame Scottland's corner? They know their fighter better than anyone and they know how much he wanted to win this fight. They could have thrown in the towel and wish they had. But every time it looked like Scottland might be in trouble, he fought back, even winning the eighth and ninth rounds on some cards.
Should we blame the first guy who taught Scottland how to throw a left hook? Do we blame the promoter? Do we blame David Telesco, who pulled out of the fight with Jones and was replaced by Scottland?
Maybe we put the blame where it belongs: on the nature of the beast. If fighting was safe, it wouldn't be fighting.
To gutsy fighters like Scottland, there is something personal and important about finishing a fight. And it you can't finish it, you at least want to be carried off on your shield.
Tragically, sometimes it becomes a stretcher.
Extra rounds - Like poor credit and cheap cologne, bad reputations always seem to follow people around.
Mike Tyson's reputation as a thug won't leave him, won't disappear quietly into the night like he wishes it would. Instead, his ugly past keeps finding its way to the surface, continues to be dragged up and kicked again every time someone sits down to talk to him.
After more than a decade, Tyson's little comment about hitting ex-wife Robin Givens has again seen the light of day. In his book ``Fire and Fury,'' an unauthorized biography of Tyson written in 1989 by Jose Torres, he quotes the ex-champ as saying, ``She (Givens) really offended me and I went, bam! and she flew backward, hitting every f------ wall in the apartment. That was the best punch I've ever thrown in my f------ life.''
Remember when that little quote hit the papers?
Obviously, Maxim magazine and writer Albert Baime were concerned you forgot. So they included the quote in a piece Baime did on Tyson for the July issue of Maxim.
Near the end of the article, Baime, who apparently got along with Tyson, said he had to remind himself about what kind of man he was dealing with and writing about. It was getting too easy to like Tyson, to forget what he had done in the past. So Baime tossed the quote out as a friendly reminder to himself and his readers that Iron Mike has always had a few demons locked inside his head screaming to get out. It was almost like a disclaimer: Beware of this man. Come near him and grow to like him only at your own risk.
Fair enough. It was a good piece and the quote was in parenthesis, telling us it wasn't from Baime's notes.
The problem now is, Entertainment Tonight did a little follow up on Baime's interview and they included the quote on their show without bothering to mention where it came from or when it was supposedly said. ET made it sound as though Tyson said the infamous words just the other day. They offered a retraction, but that just brought it all up again.
So now Tyson is upset, ET is blaming Maxim and Maxim is looking at ET, reminding them that Baime claims he told the ET producers where the quote came from right from the beginning.
I'm guessing Tyson cancels his subscription to Maxim.