When in Doubt, Stop the Bout: A Revolutionary Approach to Boxing Safety and Reform by Mike Silver

For all of my boxing fans, legendary boxing author, Mike Silver, just published his 4th book on the sport: When in Doubt, Stop the Bout. 

If Mike's name rings a bell, you may remember him from a previous post.

Mike's passion for boxing runs deep, and he was kind to pen the piece below to give Books About Sports readers an inside look on why he wrote the book and what he hopes you will gain from it. 

Please enjoy Mike's guest post below. 

Mike Silver

It is past time for professional boxing to evolve and make the necessary adjustments to compensate for the unprecedented incompetence and negligence that is pervasive throughout the sport.

“If boxing is a sport, it is the most tragic of all sports because more than any human activity it consumes the very excellence it displays—its drama is this very consumption. To expend oneself in fighting the greatest fight of one’s life is to begin by necessity the downward turn that next time may be a plunge, an abrupt fall into the abyss.” –Joyce Carol Oates

Oft times the plunge that Joyce Carol Oates describes is less an abrupt fall for the boxer than a slow and depressing slog into the abyss of mental confusion and eventual dementia. My new book, When in Doubt, Stop the Bout, is an attempt to lessen the severity of the fall and perhaps avoid the abyss. Is it possible? If I didn’t think so I would not have written this book.

I have been a close observer of the boxing scene for over 50 years and have written four books on the subject. During that time I’ve tried to reconcile my intense interest in boxing with my knowledge of how damaging and destructive it is to the athletes who compete.

Just to be clear, I am fully cognizant of the fact that boxing can never be made completely safe. The only way that would be possible is to abolish the sport. Since that is unrealistic, I was intent on finding ways to mitigate the damage without robbing boxing of its inherent drama and excitement. After four years of extensive research and analyses I concluded that much unnecessary damage was taking place due to a repetitive pattern of negligence, incompetence, abuse and corruption. In other words, there is much room for improvement.  

After analyzing 137 boxing fatalities I came to the conclusion that over 60 percent were avoidable if certain protocols were in place both before and during the actual fight. Over the past quarter century an average of four boxers suffer fatal injuries each year due to punishment received in a professional boxing match. You could argue that four deaths a year in a violent contact sport—in which thousands of athletes compete annually—isn’t a large number. But it would be a mistake to focus solely on the number of deaths and not consider the thousands of fighters who survive their careers but suffer permanent and progressive brain damage.

The title of my book was motivated by the dozens of professional boxing matches I personally witnessed that were stopped too late resulting in unnecessary brain trauma and, on two occasions, the death of the fighter. The referees who officiated in these bouts were never called to account for their behavior. Referees in other sports must undergo a rigorous formalized training program over several years. Absurdly, no training program even approaching that type of formal preparation exists in professional boxing.

A big part of the problem is that professional boxing’s infrastructure is fragmented. Unlike other major sports, professional boxing has never had a national commissioner or any type of responsible centralized authority. Each state or country has their own boxing commission, usually overseen by political hacks who know little about the sport they are supposed to supervise. Performance is generally inconsistent and runs the gamut from dangerously negligent to barely adequate. It is this lack of a centralized regulatory authority that gave rise in the early 1980s to an alphabet soup of so-called “sanctioning organizations”. These self-appointed quasi-official entities each have their own ratings and champions. The alphabets only exist to fill their director’s pockets with huge “sanctioning fees” taken out of the earnings from both champion and challenger for the privilege of fighting for an organization’s title belt. The greed, stupidity, and corruption of these organizations have actually made a dangerous sport even more dangerous.

My candid interview with an experienced professional boxing referee - who for obvious reasons chose to remain anonymous - reveals the politics and back room deals that often decide who will referee an important bout or who will be banned. Unfortunately, the competence of the referee has very little to do with the final decision.
So, what’s the solution to this mess? The answer lies in the boxing industry having the will to adopt the 15 constructive proposals described in When in Doubt, Stop the Bout. Although some will balk at reinstituting the standing eight count or requiring a modified headgear in competition, I would ask the reader to withhold judgement until after having read the pros and cons for each proposal.

Referees and ringside physicians will benefit enormously from reading chapter 5 - “Educating the Referee” – which includes the transcript of a seminar presented to the New York State Athletic Commission by a world-renowned neurologist on how to recognize the signs of concussion and knowing when it is appropriate to stop a fight.

Of course, improved training procedures and accountability for both referees and ringside physicians should be a priority, but that takes time and will be difficult to implement quickly across various jurisdictions. But there are changes that can be initiated now that can make a huge difference. The most controversial, and most likely the change that would do the most good, would be to limit the number of scheduled rounds. Statistics from 1980 to 2023 show that 70 percent of boxing fatalities occur after the fifth round, with one-third occurring in the last scheduled round of a fight. In pro boxing the last scheduled round is either 4, 6, 8, 10 or 12. Every referee and ringside physician should be made aware of these statistics.

As explained in the book, there is a historic precedence for shorter fights. During the first two decades of the last century, two major boxing hubs limited professional bouts to not more than four rounds (California) and six rounds (Philadelphia). The ban on longer fights lasted for over a decade at each location. Despite the shorter bouts there was no diminution in the popularity of boxing. Most significantly, shortening the number of rounds resulted in fewer fatalities.

It is past time for professional boxing to evolve and make the necessary adjustments to compensate for the unprecedented incompetence and negligence that is pervasive throughout the sport.

Another justification for modifying the rules and shortening the number of rounds is the alarming lack of defensive skills among today’s boxers. Most fights, from preliminary bouts to world championships, resemble “rock ‘em, sock ‘em” robotic slugfests with little attention paid to defensive techniques. Much of the blame rests with the poor quality of today’s trainers who cannot teach what they do not know.

The problem is compounded by having so many championships up for grabs. Over the past several decades the four sanctioning organizations (WBC,WBA, IBF and WBO) have created over 100 new “titles” (all of which require the fighters to pay a hefty sanctioning fee). Most of these contests are scheduled for 12 rounds and involve neophyte pros with barely a dozen (or less) pro fights on their resumes. These fighters, who in decades past would still be learning their trade in 6 or 8 round preliminary bouts, are thrust prematurely into punishing 12 round bouts before they are ready for the distance. As documented in the book, in recent years over a dozen boxers have died in such bouts, virtually all of them ending in the 10th to 12th rounds.

Boxing’s criminally flawed infrastructure cries out for a readjustment to the rules of engagement. In a devastating chapter titled “Boxing’s Parasites” I explain how the sport’s nefarious sanctioning organizations manipulate their ratings of contenders at the behest of powerful promoters often resulting in dangerous mismatches approved by feckless boxing commissions.
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The new rules proposed in this book, if adopted, will benefit current and future generations of boxers by keeping them safer and healthier. It’s now up to those who control the professional boxing industry to decide whether to keep the status quo or do the right thing and make the changes that his ancient sport desperately needs. Anyone who cares about boxing and the fighters who put themselves at risk should read this book.
Whether you agree with all or just some of my proposals, what is inarguable is this: every boxer who steps into the ring deserves the safest possible work environment while they pursue their dreams in an unforgiving sport.

For more information on the book or to buy a copy, please see the link below. 

Buy On Amazon