For decades, climbing on top of a quadrangle to practice boxing was one of the easiest ways to make money and get out of poverty. In the United States, champions used to come out of slums, whether they were African Americans or children of newly arrived immigrants. First they were Jews, then Irish and Italians. Finally, Latin Americans or Filipinos. Jeanette Zacarías Zapata, without being very aware of it, followed this path. Daughter of a poor family from the Mexican state of Aguascalientes, at the age of 15 she starred in her first welterweight bout. Her father, a big fan of boxing and an admirer of Óscar de la Hoya, first did not want his daughter to pursue this sport. He then supported her. And now she cries, because Zacharias has died at the age of 18 after five days fighting for his life in a hospital. Her parents, without proper papers to travel, had not been able to accompany her in the first fight she was doing abroad, in Canada. Zacarías had collapsed after losing his bout to Canadian Marie-Pier Houle at the IGA Stadium in Montreal this Saturday. It was a fight in which Houle always dominated. The referee stopped him in the fourth round giving the winner the Quebec boxer, but when she raised her fist satisfied, in a corner of the ring Zacarías lost consciousness.
The promoter in charge of the fight, Groupe Yvon Michel (GYM), has received criticism because Zacarías had just lost his last two fights, one of which in May, by KO. “To respect security protocols, someone who has lost a fight without receiving blows should not be exposed to another fight in the following months, in which logic says you have no options,” said Mexican Mauricio Sulaiman Saldivar, president of the North American Boxing Confederation. “We will study whether there has been negligence. It may have affected the little professional experience of the rival, who would have continued to beat when it was already decided who would win “, he added. The organizers of the fight had been looking for a rival for Houle, a 31-year-old physiotherapist who in recent years has been trying to make the leap to the professional circuit, after 25 amateur fights. The pandemic, however, did not allow him to find an American rival and, in the end, he opted for the Mexican one. The company defended itself by recalling that both had defeated in 2019 a Mexican, Verónica Díaz Marín, which is why they believed it would be a leveled fight. It was not like that.
The debate about the helmet
Every time a boxer dies, the debate over whether it makes sense to gamble his life in a ring returns. “Experience tells us that behind a death there is usually negligence. An athlete who doesn’t care, who hasn’t hydrated, who has hidden information. There are fewer and fewer deaths. In fact, the death toll in boxing is lower than in mountaineering, car racing or some cycling disciplines, ”defends Sulaiman Saldivar. Since the first written rules of boxing, those of Jack Broughton in 1743, this sport has been more protective of its practitioners, in many cases wearing protective helmets, as in the Olympics. In professional combat this is not the case. And, in fact, according to a 2018 study by the University of Granada: “There is a more dangerous risk than death, which are statistically low. The big risk of boxing is the high amount of problems boxers have when they retire. Memory loss, dementia, mobility problems … ”, says Juan Carlos Robles, director of the study.
Zacharias, who hoped to make his way to the top of a quadrangle, adds his name to a long list of dead boxers. And the debate remains open.
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