In 1983 the American Medical Association editor, George Lundberg, wrote that boxing was an “obscenity” that “should not be sanctioned by any civilized society.” When Ali was just 42 years old, 3 years after retiring, he suffered tremors, slowness, slurred speech and fatigue. He wrote, “I’ve been in the boxing ring for 30 years, and I’ve taken a lot of punches, so there is a great possibility something could be wrong.”

“Dr. Rodolfo Savica, a physician and researcher with the Mayo Clinic, agreed that those who suffer head trauma are more likely to face a diagnosis of Parkinson’s later in life. Genetic components, he and others believe, are also at play. “There is definitely an individual predisposition to develop this disease that we think can be potentially enhanced by the head trauma itself,” he said.

“Dr. John Trojanowski, a neurologist at the University of Pennsylvania, said he met Ali at a fundraising event in Las Vegas several years ago, by which point the boxer was unable to speak. Based on what Trojanowski understood of Ali’s symptoms, and Trojanowski’s own research, he said it’s “highly likely that his early-onset Parkinson’s was a result of his boxing.” ^[1]

This from the Morning Star:

“OVER the last half-century, the world heavyweight title has beaten an increasingly erratic and sadly inconsequential course. It has traipsed its gaudy cloak through bust casino towns and dead-end leisure centres, pitching up most recently in the Saudi desert, and been contested in one spurious form or another on all five major continents. It has survived so-called “bite nights” and interruptions by errant paragliders and been claimed both by those who deserve to be called all-time greats, and others who, in the words of Larry Holmes, were not fit to carry their jockstraps.

“Now, as 58-year-old former champions prepare to cash in by lacing on the gloves against YouTuber Jake Paul, it cannot be long before it endures the ultimate indignity of being scrapped out among social-media celebrities. In the thousands of rounds and hundreds of venues and forest-loads of hype and bluster that have followed it, the so-called “richest prize in sport” has never again reached the heights it scaled on October 30, 1974, in the African nation then known as Zaire.

“More than the maniacal ego of a power-crazed dictator in Mobutu Sese Seko, a man so predisposed to splashing his nation’s cash he would also build a Concorde-sized landing strip in the middle of the forest in order to facilitate his wife’s shopping trips to Paris. More, even, than the outrageous, opportunist vision of a newly shock-haired promoter in the shape of Don King.

“Ali still split opinion following his conviction for draft-dodging in 1967 and his conversion to Islam. He had lost to Ken Norton — and sustained a broken jaw in the process — the previous year, before a rematch win, and a gruelling decision over Frazier in January 1974, justified his return to title contention. The surly, brooding Foreman — at 25, seven years younger than Ali — had waged a trail of destruction through the heavyweight ranks since turning professional after his gold medal win at the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City.

“As if the magnitude of that achievement was not enough, Ali’s “rope-a-dope” strategy drew astonished observers to label his performance one of the most audacious and ingenious tactical masterstrokes in sport. Instead of seeking to impel his ageing limbs to dance away from Foreman’s clubbing shots, Ali invited them in, tempting an increasingly frustrated Foreman to punch himself close to a virtual standstill, before pouncing to claim the most improbable of victories. Hours later, the rains swept in, subjecting the 20th of May Stadium to such a sudden drenching it was as if the elements themselves refused to be denied their bit-part in such a night of improbable drama.

“Ali died in June 2016, aged 74, having clung to life through the awful fog of Parkinson’s disease for many years after being diagnosed in 1984. Meanwhile the vanquished Foreman has made his fortune selling fat-reducing grills. But the story of the Rumble in the Jungle has been passed down generations and remains just as pertinent and extraordinary — the night Muhammad Ali underlined his status as “The Greatest,” deep in the dark heart of Africa. ^[2]

In the Brain and Life publication of March/April 2006 Frank Clancy has an article, The Connection Between Boxing and Brain Injury in which he observes, “Brain damage is as much an occupational hazard for boxers as black lung is for coal miners”. In BBC News online of 26 November 2021 Tomos Morgan’s article, Boxers at greater risk of early onset dementia, study finds, says “Findings show they are at least twice as likely to have Alzheimer’s-like cognitive impairment, with the onset of dementia starting on average five years earlier than those who had never boxed” he writes. ^[3]

Horse racing football, rugby, ice hockey and other violent contact sports have been identified as causing brain damage. Famous victims are Mohammed Ali and Joe Frazer but shamefully their daughters, Laila Ali and Jacqui Frazier-Lyde fought each other. Five members of England’s 1966 World Cup-winning team died from dementia.

For many years all serious medical organisations globally have called for the abolition of boxing. In 1983 the American Medical Association editor, George Lundberg, wrote that boxing was an “obscenity” that “should not be sanctioned by any civilized society.” When Ali was just 42 years old, 3 years after retiring, he suffered tremors, slowness, slurred speech and fatigue. He wrote, “I’ve been in the boxing ring for 30 years, and I’ve taken a lot of punches, so there is a great possibility something could be wrong.”

If all these medical opinions were accepted, then courts would see huge compensations claims. The socialist society of the future will successfully ban all violent contact sports because human beings will no longer need to violently confront each other to escape poverty, ‘from each according to their ability, to each according to their need’.

Notes

[1] STAT,  Bob Tedeschi, June 4, 2016, Muhammad Ali and Parkinson’s disease: Was boxing to blame? https://www.statnews.com/2016/06/04/muhammad-ali-parkinsons-disease/

[2] Morning Star, October 30, 2024, Rumble in the Jungle: 50 https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/rumble-jungle-50-years-most-famous-fight-boxing-history

[3] Brain and Life, Frank Clancy April 2006 ,The Connection Between Boxing and Brain Injury. https://www.brainandlife.org/articles/head-blows-from-boxing-can-cause-dementia-and-alzheimers-can  ▲