The Ugly Side of the Hurt Business

The life of an elite professional athlete in America highlights the idea of hard work and dedication to the game will lead to success. Success in professional American sports equals more money for the athlete. Sport heavily focuses on winning and this increased pressure to win has had athletes follow the sport ethic of hard work, personal sacrifice, understanding risks, and playing through the pain (Coakley, 2013; Hughes & Coakley, 1991). Sadly not every professional athlete reaches or stays at the elite level long enough to sustain for the rest of their lives. Professional athletes will do what it takes in order to win and chase the dream of making big money.

Abiding by the sport ethic and deciding to sacrifice everything, including their own well being, brings up long and short term health issues when that final bell or whistle is blown. With an athlete retiring from their sport, the effects and consequences from playing through pain and sacrificing their body begin to come up (Eitzen, 2009). This affects the athlete’s mental and physical state, as well as their ability to provide for their family. In combative sports such as boxing, playing through the pain was often preached to boxers, either through their coach or the general stigma in the sport itself.  This is sadly the case with Gerald McClellan, also known as the G-Man, who is living this social injustice in that retired athletes are forgotten.

Gerald McClellan was a former middleweight champion who just began his height of his career in 1995, and was often was compared to as a smaller Mike Tyson (Para, 2001). McClellan was a powerful puncher who always came forward and had 29 knockouts out of his 31 wins (Donovan, 2014; Hoffer, 1996). Having cleaned out the middleweight division, he moved up in weight to fight against reigning super middleweight champion Nigel Benn. Tragically for McClellan this would be his last fight, even though he was the heavy 4-1 favorite and scored an impressive knock down in the first round that had Benn falling through the ropes and out of the ring (Donovan, 2014). As the fight continued, both Benn and McClellan exchanged blows until finally in the tenth round, McClellan was unable to continue (Mitchell, 2011). He later collapsed after being taken back to his corner and was  immediately rushed to the hospital where he stayed in a coma for two months (Kanew, 2002). The damage from the brain clot injury left McClellan eighty percent deaf, blind, and wheelchair-bound (Kanew, 2002). He continues to live under 24-hour care of his sisters, having no pension or savings (common among retired boxers) even after having expended his earnings despite a two-year title reign (Kanew, 2002). 

Common with retired athletes, once the music stops, the life becomes difficult for them to adjust. For McClellan, having forced to retire due to medical issues, left him unable to be physically mobile. This ultimately affected his ability to work as a boxer or perform regular activities of daily living in order support himself and to provide for his family. At the time of the injury, McClellan was on top of the boxing world in the middleweight class, yet the money earned in his two year peak was not enough to cover the medical expenses that he has occurred. With an industry that uses sport to generate money, athletes become expendable. Athletes that retire with long term injuries suffer the injustice of covering their own medical expenses. This was the case for McClellan who after being unable to perform inside the ring, prevented him from earning money.

The idea that organizations or individuals benefit with disregard to an athletes own well being is an issue. The long term physical effects of a sport makes athletes easily replaceable once retirement occurs. Some of the individuals who benefitted from the McClellan case were the ones who managed his career. Especially in the sport of boxing, McClellan’s promoter was the notorious Don King, who also exploited other famous boxers such as Mike Tyson and Muhammad Ali (Christ, 2013; Hoffer, 1996). At the time, McClellan was under Don King promotions and was among many individuals under that banner. Another boxer in the same weight division under the same promotion, Bernard Hopkins, quickly became the focus for Don King (Christ, 2013). This is unsurprising going back to the issue of retired athletes who easily get exploited in professional sports. Athletes are simply objects to be used and abused to achieve the organizations goal. Yet who ultimately pays the price for their sacrifice? When they are broken, does their handler still take care of them during retirement? Should they be obligated or required to do so? 

In the sport of boxing, it is the only professional sport that does not have any pension, work union, or retirement plan for the boxers (Silver, n.d.). Boxing organizations that benefit on their athletes need to be taking care of them. Just like the National Football League and their players association, retired athletes are able to live reasonably. Such plan should be adopted by boxing organizations, which can be a step towards socially justice for retired boxers.

Reference

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Christ, S. (2013). Don King’s last stand: Once the ruler of boxing, aging promoter now barely hangs on in changing sport. SB Nation. Retrieved April 29, 2014, from http://www.badlefthook.com/2013/4/9/4205302/don-king-last-stand-once-ruler-boxing-aging-promoter-barely-hangs-on.

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Hughes, Robert & Jay Coakley. 1991. Positive deviance among athletes: The implications of over-conformity to the sport ethic. Sociology of Sport Journal, 8(27), 307-325.

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Mitchell, K. (2001). Nigel Benn v Gerald McClellan – the tragic fight continues to haunt. Retrieved 28^th April, 2014, from http://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2011/dec/02/nigel-benn-gerald-mcclellan-fight. 

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