Sweet science turns sickly

Taylor's return to the ring another reason to reform boxing

Let’s not waste time getting the disclaimers out of the way. Everyone has the right to make a buck and, if you check the resume, yours truly has never "puffed" -- as George O’Leary’s agent likes to say -- about expertise in the field of neurology.

But sit across from Meldrick Taylor for 10 minutes, struggle to decipher the words that come out badly garbled and slurred, and you wonder who in his right mind would allow him in a boxing ring. This day, he struggles periodically to catch his breath. A quick hit of water ends up rolling down his chin.

Medical folks say you need a baseline to compare speech pattern. So you check out a 1988 tape of Taylor after he took the IBF welterweight title from Buddy McGirt, and the newly-crowned champ is lucid, engaging on network TV -- easy to understand. The comparison of speech pattern is powerful stuff. You’d swear it’s not the same guy.

Like other fighters before him, Taylor downplays any assertion that slurred speech can often be a precursor to other problems.

"It can be, [but it] doesn’t matter," he protests, his words at times a string of indistinguishable grunts. "Doesn’t stop my ability to fight. My hands and my feet is what I need. And my brain, and my brain’s OK, too. I think well … I’m am coherent so my speech difference should not stop me from being a fighter."

No, but some hard questions need to be asked. Some neurological evaluations should be run.

And what gets the blood boiling is that Taylor, a 1984 Olympic gold medalist and once a beautiful boxer, has been brought in as the main attraction on a Birmingham fight card tonight.

If Senator John McCain is searching for a poster child for his boxing reform bill, he need look no further than the Deep South and the former two-time world champion. Taylor will enter the ring despite suffering what many in the fight game suspect are neurological problems stemming from boxing injuries.

Taylor, 35, is a shadow of the sweet, unblemished fighter who stepped in the ring March 17, 1990, for what turned into a bloody brawl with the also unbeaten Julio Cesar Chavez. Taylor lost by TKO in the final seconds of the bout, and was hospitalized for four days, bones broken around the socket of one eye. Afterward, Taylor was seldom able to slip the punches he once easily avoided as he slogged through a 13-6 record in nine years and his speech became noticeably slurred.

Asked if he was troubled by this speech pattern, Birmingham matchmaker Harry Barnett says Taylor has had a "speech defect all his life. And I don’t think it is boxing related."

Veteran trainer Lou Duva left Taylor in 1993, advising him to retire. He was already slurring words by then.

"He was always sharp and could speak," says Duva, surprised to learn of the latest comeback. "To say his speech is not impaired now is bull. He shouldn’t be fighting."

Taylor angrily counters that he still has the skills of a champion. Duva doesn’t know what he’s talking about, he says. He claims he is being singled out by the boxing commissions, the media and the "player haters" in the streets.

"This [is an] opportunity to make a living in my sport," he argues. "It’s what [I] do best. They say [it’s] not safe for me to fight … want me to go take test, pass to fight. No problem. I know I’ll pass test."

However, concerned about his slurred speech and the possible onset of what doctors call dementia pugilistica -- brain damage caused by repetitive head trauma -- New Jersey’s boxing commission has refused to license Taylor. He has also avoided fighting in other states, such as Nevada, that require neurological tests before licensing. Most recently, Taylor backed out of a January card in Atlanta.

"I explained [to Taylor's handlers] the examinations that needed to be taken, and that was the last I ever heard from them," said Tom Mishou, who heads the five-member Georgia Boxing Commission. "He really should undergo a battery of neurological examinations before anyone should license him. And he shouldn’t be fighting until he can pass those tests."

Taylor swears he’s passed tests in Denmark and Atlanta. Mishou laughs, saying Taylor has never submitted to a test in his state.

So, in fighting for the first time in more than two years, Taylor has crossed into Alabama, one of the few states without a boxing commission (an official from Louisiana is being brought in to oversee the card) and where promoters are banking his famous name can still sell tickets.

Taylor was to resume his comeback against a Birmingham fighter who suffered the bad fortune of being arrested at a promotional appearance on a warrant for "a domestic child support thing," according to Barnett. The scheduled fill-in, Willie "Bama Bomber" McDonald, is himself an interesting character, having had his license suspended in Georgia last September 29 for what Mishou describes as "neurological reasons." The Association of Boxing Commissions identifies McDonald on its suspended list and in theory he isn’t permitted to fight in any state that has a commission.

The matchmaker suggests the fight "should really tell us where Taylor is at."

And why the sport needs to be cleaned up.

 

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