Friday 18 October 2019

Legitimate death by assault

Patrick Day [L looking happy] is in the news because he's dead. Here's the wikipedia exec summary: Patrick Day suffered a traumatic brain injury after being knocked out by Charles Conwell in a USBA super welterweight title bout on October 12, 2019, and died four days later. Boxing announcer Michael Buffer described Day as a "wonderful young man" and that "everyone in the boxing community is crushed". WBC president Mauricio Sulaiman said boxing had lost a "brave, kind and wonderful friend". Charles Conwell, the boxer who caused Day’s brain injury, wrote an open letter on Instagram to him expressing his sorrow and regret.

This may remind you of The Onion's ironic take on gun-control in the USA ‘No Way To Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens. Which story they have published multiple times after another mass-shooting. Eddie Hearn, who makes a living matching youg men to batter each other for money, wept during his comments on Day's death "You can say 'it's boxing' but it is so hard to justify." How about saying "it's assault with a couple of deadly fists what do you expect", would that help you clarify your ethical position, Mr Hearn?

I was a child boxer. After lunch on Wednesday as eight year olds we used to flail at each other in a temporary ring set up in one of the class-rooms. But the physics of it says that small damage can be done with little fists in big padded gloves; and the past [1962] is a different country. Back then  it would have been unthinkable for little girls to have a go at each other in that way; the moral corruption of society is such that Katie Taylor can now serve as a role model for young women. The case is altered when fit young adult men and women at the peak of their physical strength batter each other until one falls down . . . and someone makes money on it. Shocking is what it is. Should be unacceptable in a civilised society. And, as you know, CSE Contact Sport Encephalopathy is not limited to boxing.

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