Superman…
Adonis “Superman” Stevenson has sometimes been a derided figure by the fans outside of Quebec and the boxing media at large. Though the 41 year old light heavyweight has long been known as a monster puncher and just concluded what was the longest active world title reign in the sport at five and a half years, his level of competition has been perceived as substandard for some time. That hardly matters anymore.
Superman fought two unquestionably top competitors this year in Badou Jack and Oleksandr Gvozdyk. His May battle with Jack turned into a war by its end and Stevenson did have a few rounds where he took a lot of damage to the head. Ultimately he rallied late and salvaged his belt thanks to a fair draw. Last night he nearly did the same thing against Gvozdyk. Even at 41 and clearly behind in the fight, the power of Adonis Stevenson hurt his younger Ukrainian opponent in the tenth round and almost swung the fight. Unfortunately, just one round later Oleksandr would turn the tables and obliterate the instantly former champion in the corner.
From there, Stevenson struggled to rise. He did and made it to his stool. I then watched the replay of the finish and quickly tuned over to the PPV broadcast that was starting, as did everyone else. Unfortunately, it is what we didn’t see that was most troubling. Superman couldn’t walk unaided, let alone fly. He reportedly struggled to get to his dressing room and was taken to the hospital. There he was diagnosed with a brain bleed and put into a medically induced coma.
We have too many recent examples of this in the sport. Erik Skoglund and Nick Blackwell both suffered the same fate in sparring and in a fight with Chris Eubank Jr respectively. Both men are now reportedly more or less their old selves once again. Magomed Abdusalamov and Daniel Franco suffered similar injuries in televised fights and have not recovered to the same full extent. Franco is impaired, but functional. Abdusalmov will be severely handicapped for the rest of his life almost certainly. It should be noted that Abdusalamov received exceptionally poor care in NY after his HBO loss, however, and that doesn’t seem to be the case for Stevenson in Quebec thankfully.
This is tragic. Obviously Adonis Stevenson’s boxing career is over, though if he does heal then no one should take it for granted that he will accept this on his own. Nick Blackwell’s ill advised return to sparring set that example for us. That is classic cart before the horse reasoning, however. There is no guarantee that Adonis Stevenson will ever be able to be a normal functioning adult man ever again. The brain is a fragile, individual thing in each of us that we do not fully understand. All we can do is trust in his medical care and wait for more information.
It is a gutting reality. What makes it much worse is that there was no way to avoid it within the context of boxing. Adonis Stevenson was not in over his head. He has been a world class fighter. Though he was losing the fight to most people’s eyes, Adonis was not taking some ridiculous sustained beating. In fact, he was even up on the official scorecards at the time of the finish. He shouldn’t have been, of course, but he was. The stoppage wasn’t late either. While the last punch didn’t need to land, the referee was jumping in before it connected. Everything was normal.
I remember remarking that Adonis was really hurt after the finish, that he was struggling to get up. I noticed that he was a bit more out of it than normal. That’s it. It wasn’t enough for me to stay tuned in rather than switch to the start of the Wilder-Fury PPV. There was no moment in the bout that I thought it should have been stopped until it was. Adonis has shown he was still alive in the fight one round earlier by scoring what should have been a knockdown. His vaunted left launched Gvozdyk sideways and would have put him on the canvas had the ropes not held the eventual winner up. It was all normal boxing.
In fact, not one of the fights above was especially egregious. Madomed Abdusalamov ate a lot of shots in what at the time seemed like a fun heavyweight fight against Mike Perez, but he was competitive the whole way. Erik Skoglund got through a sparring session fine before complaining of discomfort and collapsing. Daniel Franco was a victim of some rabbit punches, but he was very competitive in the fight in which he fought pretty dirty himself. He did complain of dizziness to his corner, however, and was sent back out. Nick Blackwell was the only one to take a real beating. Chris Eubank Jr battered him for ten rounds, but when the bout was stopped it was because of swelling on his eye and nothing else. Adonis Stevenson never seemed in danger of any serious injury last night either.
Of all five of these men, only Daniel Franco gave a clear warning sign that he was distressed. None of the fights were obvious mismatches when they were booked and none of them were super over the top, one sided beatings that had fans and commentators crying for the contest to be stopped. Only Eubank-Blackwell was close to that and it never really reached that fever pitch. They were all normal fights.
The implications here are staggering to consider. How could the sport have prevented those five incidents? Well, post-fight Adbusalamov tragically could have had much better medical care. He should not have been puking on the sidewalk while trying to hail a cab and get to the hospital on his own. His current condition can likely be attributed to New York State’s negligence. His family received a handsome settlement for it, but not even $22 million can bring him back. Yet, nothing in the fight itself should have been handled differently. Daniel Franco, of course, should have been pulled out by his father/trainer when he complained of dizziness. That is the easy one. What should have been done differently in the cases of Nick Blackwell, Erik Skoglund, and Adonis Stevenson though? There is no obvious move. If anything, maybe Blackwell could have been pulled out of the fight sooner, I guess. No one was yelling stop the fight in the moment though.
The fact of the matter is that the only way to have prevented these tragedies or near tragedies completely would be for the men to not have been participating in the sport of boxing. That is it. As media and fans, we prop up this possibility of absolute tragedy with our dollars, views, and clicks. It is our decision to bankroll boxing that has absolutely been these fighters ultimate undoing. Without us, they don’t take damage. These five are mild cases too. Though none have been very high profile, there have been five deaths as a result of sanctioned boxing matches worldwide since 2016. The biggest catastrophes have been out of sight, out of mind on more local level shows, but no less real.
What do we do with this knowledge of our culpability in actual life and death stakes that exist only for our entertainment? I don’t know. I really don’t.
