OPINION:People ought to stop bare-knuckle boxing and there's a good reason

First, I am an ex-amateur boxer. I also coached amateur boxing in Wyoming for about five years. Now 73 years old, I don’t regret doing either and would do them again.

But as one ages, we sometimes form opinions that surprise even ourselves. I have one of those and it probably will not be popular with many people. I think they ought to stop bare-knuckle boxing.

I think the whole bare-knuckle boxing craze is a mistake — a mistake for the athletes, the State Athletic Commission, possibly even the fans and the promoters. Why do I say this? Because with any kind of fighting, things can go south in a hurry. People get hurt beyond repair.

A few memories of my own come to mind: At 11 years old, in 1962, I was watching Benny “The Kid” Paret fight Emile Griffith on a black-and-white TV with my father. Paret started taking a flurry of combinations in the corner and was quickly in trouble. You could see his arms were kind of hung up on the ropes, and the referee was way late getting in to stop it.

The barrage kept coming, relentlessly. When Paret finally crumpled and fell face down, I looked at my father and said, “Dad, I think he killed him.” The man did, in fact die two days later from a coma he never awoke from. I also remember seeing heavyweight Jerry Quarry, an idol of mine, being unable to spell his own name at his Hall of Fame induction. The man could not tie his own shoes.

So that begs the question. With tragedies like those in normal boxing, could bare-knuckle be even worse? My vote is a resounding yes.

In 1983, Billy Ray Collins Jr. fought a man who had taken padding out of his boxing gloves. He had also weighted down his wraps. Collins suffered head and facial injuries that ended his career. One year later, he died in a car accident that many suspected was intentional. The fighter who altered the gloves, Luis Resto, later served two and a half years in prison for the deed.

Look, I know that people love combat sports in Albuquerque. It’s been a “fighting town” and always will be. There is nothing wrong with that. And I am sure there’s a lot of money to be made, especially for the promoters. And who doesn’t like money? But the thing is, I have been on the business end of Mike Tyson-level punches and can tell you that those slow-motion sequences in the “Rocky” movies where the fighter’s world goes blurry and everything flashes bright-white are very real. It is actually worse than that. The last time, I had trouble doing simple math for a week. To imagine those same repeated blows coming without the full 10-ounces of padding between his fist and my head is almost unimaginable.

In the end, for all concerned, I think doing that is a mistake. And that, as Howard Cosell used to say, is my opinion.