Exactly eight years ago, the talented Puerto Rican Pritchard Colon had a scandalous fight against the American Terrell Williams, after which fell into a coma and has remained bedridden since then. We remember the terrible details of that fight in Virginia and once again emphasize how dangerous the world of professional sports can be.
< br>The grief of domestic boxing
What is behind the large fees and fame of famous boxers? Not only flights and press conferences, hard training and endless medical examinations… A huge risk to life. Unfortunately, in recent years there have been a lot of fights, after which athletes remained disabled or died.
So, ten years ago, Russian boxer Magomed Abdusalamov suffered serious damage in a meeting with Cuban Mike Perez. A broken facial bone and a severe cut above the eye were only the beginning of the nightmare. Doctors decided not to hospitalize the boxer after the fight; his friends had to take him there by taxi. Already in the hospital, Abdusalomov suffered a stroke, which resulted in a month-long coma, paralysis of the right side of the body and loss of normal speech.
Now his wife is caring for the athlete, while simultaneously taking care of three daughters.
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And in July 2019, Maxim Dadashev passed away. The Russian suffered a stroke during a fight with Puerto Rican Sabriel Matias for the title of mandatory contender for the International Boxing Federation (IBF) belt. It was reported that in 11 rounds the guy missed 319 blows — it is not surprising that, due to disruption of brain function, the athlete began to defend poorly and lose orientation in space during the confrontation… In general, before the final 12th three-minute period, Dadashev’s corner threw in the towel as a sign of “surrender.”
Already in the tribune room (the boxer was brought there by his teammates), Dadashev lost consciousness and was urgently hospitalized in one of the hospitals in Maryland. Severe cerebral edema was relieved thanks to craniotomy, but neither the efforts of doctors nor artificial life support saved Maxim from death — four days later Dadashev’s heart stopped beating.
Bunny Punch
There are plenty of similar stories overseas. For example, a couple of months after Dadashev’s fight (again on October 17), the American Patrick Day died. He fell into a coma after a knockout at a tournament in Chicago, where Russian Dmitry Bivol and Ukrainian Alexander Usik also fought, and did not make it out.
Unlike Day, Pritchard Colon survived. However, after October 17, 2015, the word “life” was transformed into “survival”: since then, the athlete, who fell into a vegetative state and lost his speech, has been under observation in a rehabilitation hospital in Florida. The 31-year-old Puerto Rican is never far away from his mother, who believes in the best to the last… In the return of her son, at least a little like a smiling, charming young man with a perfect boxing record of 16-0.
What happened on that ill-fated October evening? Colon seemed to take the fight against Williams on points, but time after time he missed the back of the head. The judge did not seem to see the illegal punches, although poor Pritchard pointed this out to the referee several times. “Rabbit kicks” continued to fall on the head of the undefeated athlete, and Colon lost his nerve from the judicial lawlessness.
- Before moving on to the climax of the fight, let's explain the interesting name of the prohibited technique. «Bunny Kick» is a reference to the brutal killing of rabbits by hunters who hit the wounded animal in the back of the head or base of the skull, causing damage to the cervical spine and spinal cord, followed by death.
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In the ninth round, an angry Colon hit Williams with a low blow and was immediately fined two points. At this point, the opponent was already furious: Terrell flew at Pritchard and knocked him down, again delivering an accented blow directly to the forbidden part of the head. Colon grabbed the back of his head and fell to the floor, but continued the fight. His head was spinning and the boxer had a lost look. While the Puerto Rican was trying to recover, the cornerman took off his gloves, thinking that the ninth round was the final one. This is a disqualification… Which everyone forgot about in a matter of minutes.
In the locker room, Colon, struggling with vomiting, passed out. All this happened in front of the mother. The ambulance took the “loser” to the hospital, where the patient was diagnosed with a 1.5-centimeter brain hematoma. And although the doctors managed to reduce the swelling and remove the limited accumulation of blood, Colon fell into a coma for 221 days, after which he was no longer the same.
«We both did what we love»
After winning by disqualification, an avalanche of hate fell on Williams: Terrell understood that he was not playing by the rules, but in the heat of the fight he did not think to press the brakes. He never publicly apologized to Pritchard for the openly dirty fight, although foreign media wrote that the athlete could have voiced his sincere words in private.
Here is how the American commented on what happened in an interview with The Ring:
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"The best thing that happened in that fight was that it was stopped after nine rounds. I don’t want to think what could have happened if it had lasted one more round… The fight haunts me every day. I still want to talk to Colon's family. This will probably never happen. I didn't want to hurt this guy, but I can't sit back and sulk. I have to go my own way and be the best person I can be. In the end, we were both doing what we love.”
After the fight with Colon, Williams did not compete for two years. After that, he had four more fights and, having suffered the first defeat in his career, retired from the sport in September 2019.
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Note that in 2021 the World Boxing Council (WBC) made Colon a lifetime honorary champion of the organization.