Just before the main event of the evening, the women’s super heavyweight world title bout between the reigning WBA and IBO champions of Scotland, Hannah Rankin, and Tijuana’s traveling challenger, Alejandra Ayala, I walked outside of the seating area by the ring. There, sitting peacefully were two Mexican fans – one male and one female.
As I wandered around to welcome them to Glasgow, talking to them, trying to make them feel part of the boiling atmosphere, they tossed their flags and smiled, grateful for the hospitality. We had a conversation. I say chat, I mean as many as three people who speak different languages really can; We posed for pictures, they smiled even more, and I went back to my seat. It’s one of those fleeting moments that you hardly think about. Good luck to them and their warriors, travel safe, all the best.
Sadly, for Alejandra Ayala, things are not so simple. As she sagged against the ropes in the closing moments of the final round of the bout, held aloft only by Rankin’s relentless punches, relying on a cocktail and fragile heart to free her get her off the tarpaulin, the Mexicans were in serious trouble. She will eventually get pre-placed oxygen in her corner; I observed 10 yards or less. Beware, yes. When I found out the next day that Ayala had been transferred to Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Glasgow and underwent emergency surgery, I snapped a photo of me standing with her fan. All smiles.
Boxing has been of no help in my life and in the years before I shed blood to protect my shield. But these things happen, unfortunately. Rare, uncommon, but memorable and forever imprinted in the memory of those who witnessed them. I can remember talking to former WBC heavyweight champion, Deontay Wilder, on the phone years before he knocked out Bermane Stiverne in their rematch. Wilder raved about “wanting a body on his profile,” and I asked him how it was. really feel? Does he understand that statements of such reckless bravery will divide his fan base and disrupt his role model?
The bronze bomber, then the heavyweight champion of the world, told me that was not courageous; he told me he wanted to kill someone in the ring, and he likened it to a gladiator fight. “People pay for it, it’s entertainment,” he said, nearly justifying any paralysis, brain injury or death, while shifting responsibility from broad shoulders and his danger to his followers. Ah, it must be ours error while viewing.
After writing that interview and leaving a certain number of quotes, I often think about how Wilder would really feel – deep down, if that were to happen to him or to one of his opponents. his keeper. Here is a man who was brought into professional boxing as a means of providing for his disabled daughter; I didn’t completely buy it.
This week, an article caught my attention, and it shocked and confused me, but it didn’t surprise me. And I’m not entirely sure what the answer is. CANCER (@reformacancha), a Mexican newspaper with 200,000 followers on Twitter, shared an article from the Mexican website Opinions (www.laopinion.com). That article alleges that after Alejandra Ayala was stopped for just a few rounds by Savannah Marshall – a match held in London, UK – the Boxing Control Board contacted the Federation of Professional Boxing Committees industry of the Republic of Mexico.
It is reported that Dennis Gilmartin, a seasoned veteran of the sport and supervisor, wrote to the Mexican boxing authority 10 days after Ayala’s punitive defeat to Marshall, stating the outcome. An MRI brain scan showed a tumor in the boxer’s brain. Back in 2018, it wasn’t significant enough to stop Ayala from fighting the Olympian – a decision that made the beggar believe in himself – but doubt was raised about any attempt to follow the discovery. this time in Mexico, when she returned from the loss to Marshall, or continued to license Ayala in her duel with Rankin.
According to neurosurgeon Edgar Nathal, the tumor, measuring 3mm, may have grown at different rates, and could have grown to a size of 1.5 or 2cm in the past four years, Nathal estimated. In fact, he says, to grow to a medically important size, it will take four to five years. Completely related. Gilmartin provided his findings to the Mexican Federation on the grounds of “professional courtesy” and listed “insignificant intracranial findings. Probably a 3mm meningioma in the left anterior condyle”. At first glance, it makes as much sense to me as I suppose it does to you – not so much. But it raises some dangerous and important questions.
I have contacted the Scottish section of the British Boxing Control Board with the following two questions as written below (but have not yet responded):
- In this case, will the Board accept foreign medical records from Mexico? And are they scrutinized or undergo a level of detail to ascertain authenticity?
- Will a boxer like Ayala – previously beaten in a British show and with troubling findings in a scan years ago – have no cause for concern when she returns to the UK to compete. match on May 13? Will the previous discovery cause any alarm or will it be ignored due to her “fit” status from Mexico?
I fully understand that it is impractical to fly every fighter jet into the UK and then provide rigorous, rigorous medical and scanning procedures. It is expensive and it is time consuming. If we asked the boxers to cover their own expenses, many of them would be lucky enough to get a Burger King at the airport on the way home. But what is the answer?
Are we seriously saying that in this case, Dennis Gilmartin felt strong enough to flag his concerns with the Mexican Boxing Federation as a matter of caution and courtesy, but when Ayala returned to the fight. playing in Glasgow, don’t have any concerns? That doesn’t suit me. Sure, there must be some stat given to Ayala’s name when it comes to being considered a rival by the BBCoC. I’m not trying to insist she shouldn’t work; I hope I’m wrong in assuming that a prior concern – no matter how minor – could have passed through the cracks in contest approval. Doesn’t the board keep a history of the fighters they fear, in case of future health risks?
And what of the licenses that international commissions give to fighter planes? Again, what can be done to reduce the risk of a medical boundary? How can we really, really be sure that a doctor in Tijuana has performed his or her due diligence or understood the inherent risks of prize hitting? Alejandra Ayala flew to Glasgow and fought Hannah Rankin in a British online TV show, which aired on FightZone. When – and I wish I could say ‘if’ – something happened to her, it horribly reflects the whole event. Not the Mexican Boxing Federation, or Ayala’s doctor, or the people who supported her in this fight after years of inactivity.
If that damages our reputation as a professional boxing leader, something must certainly be done to preserve years of medical progress and protect boxers on the shores. this sea?
Thankfully, Ayala is sober and recovering well from some stressful times over the past two weeks. It could have been a lot worse. I’m no neurosurgeon, I don’t sit on the Board, and I don’t claim to know enough about these things, but I can recall members of the media being startled when Ayala stared motionless in the opposite direction, wearing her oxygen mask. She knew something was happening to her; She knew something was wrong but didn’t know what. That is hard to see.
If there’s anything that can be done to negate the possibility of that happening, whether it’s really related to her initial tumor discovery in 2018 or it was just a flurry of bad luck, we One should explore solutions or phase gates that guarantee a level of protection for the fighter. Because those flags slung over my shoulders and waved over the heads of those two smiling fans in Glasgow, could easily have flown at half mast.
