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Rob McCracken ducking and weaving over concussion comments

Brit/Ire 
2K views 49 replies 16 participants last post by  Bob Weaver 
#1 ·
Rob McCracken later claimed Anthony Joshua was concussed, yet allowed him to continue in the fight and in doing so opened up a can of worms :

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2...-andy-ruiz-jr-rob-mccracken-boxing-concussion

Anthony Joshua's trainer Rob McCracken will not face any disciplinary action for saying he allowed his heavyweight to keep fighting while concussed, after receiving the full backing of the BBBofC.

The brain charity Headway has been deeply critical of McCracken's admission that he "knew" Joshua was concussed against Andy Ruiz Jnr yet kept "trying to get him through a few more rounds" - and accused him of failing in his duty of care for the former WBA, IBF and WBO world champion

McCracken has since clarified his remarks, saying he was "not a doctor and it may be that concussed is not the right term to have used", and strenuously denied any wrongdoing.

"In professional boxing, fighters inevitably take punches and have difficult rounds and when they come back to the corner it is your job as a coach to make a quick assessment of the situation," he said. "There is no formal concussional protocol where the doctor steps in to assess the boxer so you have to use your experience as a coach and your knowledge of the person to make a decision on whether you think they can recover."
 
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#2 ·
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/boxing/49683404

Got to give props to Ben Davison for backing McCracken in this.

This whole thing is stupid as of course any Heavyweight punching another in the head is going to have a concussive effect and they are all concussed to some degree. Fighters know the risks and you can't be a boxer and avoid concussion entirely you will always end up with it to some degree.
 
#18 ·
#19 ·
I'm not saying he looked concussed, I'm saying if you have been knocked unconscious even for a few seconds you are medically considered to be concussed. Losing consciousness is a basic symptom.

https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/concussion/symptoms-causes/syc-20355594
You are comparing Fury getting up and being allowed to continue after showing every sign he was okay to Joshua, who you are making excuses for for having 'bad concussion' that 'stopped him fighting effectively' and 'showed enough symptoms to effectively prevent him from recovering enough to compete'.

Your inconsistent with the facts trolling is getting tedious.
 
#10 ·
Hearn used the word "concussion" as an excuse straight after the fight and they have run with it since.

So if AJ was indeed was concussed in the 3rd and both Mccracken and Eddie Hearn knew...and allowed him to continue taking punches to the head. With a greater risk of serious brain injury. They should both have their licences suspended.

Not only that neither of them showed any urgency to send him to the hospital to have a scan after the fight. Instead had him do postfight press conference a full 90 minute after the fight.
 
#23 ·
There are concussions that effect a fighter's ability to fight more or less than others though. In boxing terms, one that stops you from fighting effectively is inherently "bad"!

Yeh ok he is a professional so his odds would be better, for arguments sake lets say 1 in 5 of hitting AJ at exactly the spot to cause the concussion compared with say 1 in 20 of an amateur or 1 in 50 for a man off the street but that is still only 20% so 4/5 of he would miss marginally and not get the same effect.

Well a professional darts player maybe, MVG or Taylor is overegging it. Maybe like Peter Wright....

The number of factors which had to go right, both boxers body positions, angles of punches, blocks of preceding punches, movement and speed of both boxers, the variables could easily be in the hundreds if not thousands which if any one had been different would have very likely lead to a different outcome. This is not to say that Ruiz didn't do a good job to put himself in the best position to be able to do this but this was a low percentage outcome, run this scenario ten times and it ends up with this outcome 1 or 2 times.
I don't follow darts, I just picked the couple of top level guys I could remember.

Both are more accomplished in their sport than Ruiz is in his, not sure what the equivalent to a unified heavyweight champ with an extensive amateur career would be? (Is Wright the "fartgate" guy? If so he could be a good shout).

Boxing has a lot more variables than darts, but I think the general point still stands.

If someone spends their whole life training, becomes one of the best in the world, and purposefully attempts something, then it would be churlish to chalk it off to luck.

Ronaldo doesn't know if a free kick will go in, Tiger Woods didn't know if a chip shot will sink, and often the don't . But when they do, the reaction of most unbiased observers is not "that was lucky", but rather they made their luck by choosing the correct option and executing it well.

Ruiz didn't know he would concuss AJ with that punch. He knew it would be an effective shot however, instinctively selected it, and executed it perfectly. (It's also no surprise that it hurt Joshua, who is hardly George Chuvalo).

Ruiz also went on to exploit the situation, fight the right fight, and stop AJ. Just like Lennox Lewis did when he "luckily" cut Vitali with a punch. It's boxing.
 
#27 ·
You claim Joshua was suffering from a 'bad concussion' that 'stopped him fighting effectively' and 'showed enough symptoms to effectively prevent him from recovering enough to compete'.

Is that not when a corner should be stopping a fight? If not when should a corner call a halt?

Or.....are you just overplaying Joshua's condition as an excuse for Ruiz humiliating your boy? You can't have it both ways.

As for comparing what Ruiz did to Joshua, to Wilder-Fury :

Ruiz dropped Joshua in the 3rd round with over 9 rounds to go, and according to you it was 'bad concussion that stopped Joshua recovering enough to compete and fight effectively.' So over 9 rounds to go and Joshua virtually incapacitated, at least according to you.

On the other hand, Wilder dropped Tyson in the 12th and final round, and as we saw Fury bounced up, continued to defend himself and then launched successful attacks on Wilder to finish the round and the fight.

Chalk and cheese comparison for anyone other than a fanatical troll like yourself.
I don't claim it, it's very obvious that post R3 AJ was not the fighter we had seen in the previous 22 fights.

There would have to be much clearer evidence to pull a fighter out in a World Title fight especially at HW where any punch can cause issues. AJ recovered against both Whyte and WK (who are both superior fighters to Ruiz) so there would be no reason for RM to realise the severity of the concussion.

I was suggesting if you're saying AJ should be pulled for concussion when he never lost consciousness then Fury who has admitted he did also should have.

I don't follow darts, I just picked the couple of top level guys I could remember.

Both are more accomplished in their sport than Ruiz is in his, not sure what the equivalent to a unified heavyweight champ with an extensive amateur career would be? (Is Wright the "fartgate" guy? If so he could be a good shout).

Boxing has a lot more variables than darts, but I think the general point still stands.

If someone spends their whole life training, becomes one of the best in the world, and purposefully attempts something, then it would be churlish to chalk it off to luck.

Ronaldo doesn't know if a free kick will go in, Tiger Woods didn't know if a chip shot will sink, and often the don't . But when they do, the reaction of most unbiased observers is not "that was lucky", but rather they made their luck by choosing the correct option and executing it well.

Ruiz didn't know he would concuss AJ with that punch. He knew it would be an effective shot however, instinctively selected it, and executed it perfectly. (It's also no surprise that it hurt Joshua, who is hardly George Chuvalo).

Ruiz also went on to exploit the situation, fight the right fight, and stop AJ. Just like Lennox Lewis did when he "luckily" cut Vitali with a punch. It's boxing.
Funnily Darts is quite an appropriate sport to pick comparators from considering Ruiz seems to model himself on a Darts Players physique! It's probably quite hard to find an exact reference as you really need to find a competent amateur, who then had a humdrum pro career who then got lucky and won the world title.

Ronaldo and Tiger Woods just like MVG or Taylor are the best of the best, all time greats. Ruiz is not in their class, he is at best a jobbing professional who had one great night, at worst a fat bum who got lucky. I don't believe AJ has a particular weak chin, he came back against Whyte and WK who are bigger hitters and better fighters than Ruiz could hope to be. Ruiz did a great job to exploit the situation but to pretend he is in the same league as AJ, Wilder or even Fury (whom most of you know I don't rate) is just wishful think by the majority of this board's contributors who are rabidly anti-AJ for reasons passing understanding considering his exemplary record as both a boxer and a representative of British sport.
 
#24 ·
There are concussions that effect a fighter's ability to fight more or less than others though. In boxing terms, one that stops you from fighting effectively is inherently "bad"!

Yeh ok he is a professional so his odds would be better, for arguments sake lets say 1 in 5 of hitting AJ at exactly the spot to cause the concussion compared with say 1 in 20 of an amateur or 1 in 50 for a man off the street but that is still only 20% so 4/5 of he would miss marginally and not get the same effect.

Well a professional darts player maybe, MVG or Taylor is overegging it. Maybe like Peter Wright....

The number of factors which had to go right, both boxers body positions, angles of punches, blocks of preceding punches, movement and speed of both boxers, the variables could easily be in the hundreds if not thousands which if any one had been different would have very likely lead to a different outcome. This is not to say that Ruiz didn't do a good job to put himself in the best position to be able to do this but this was a low percentage outcome, run this scenario ten times and it ends up with this outcome 1 or 2 times.
Some mental gymnastics going on in your explanation.

http://www.britishboxingnews.co.uk/...y-joshua-vs-andy-ruiz-jr-first-fight-revealed

"Mexican-American challenger Ruiz Jr's greater output and accuracy is clearly evident in the post-fight stats above. The 31-year-old world title contender, who's only loss was to then-WBO heavyweight champion Joseph Parker, threw double the amount of power punches than the defending champion did and came close to landed almost twice as many, too.
AJ threw 26% more jabs than Ruiz, but landed 12% less, which suggests his accuracy was widely off on that night in New York."

AJ's loss wasn't down to one punch it was due to being hit accurately multiple times and not being able to be effective with his own punches.
 
#25 ·
It's been a while since I watched them, but I remember thinking Froch was concussed in the Taylor fight, and maybe in the first Groves fight too.

All concussions are different, and people react differently, but Froch winning those would help explain why McCracken let the fight go on.

I witnessed a lot of knockdown, knockouts, and concussions during my amateur career. So god knows how many a guy like McCracken has seen. He is unlikely to be as phased as a civilian would be, and will have seen cases where someone came back to win.

I have no doubt he would have stopped the fight if he thought AJ was in real danger.
 
#26 ·
Also the AJ fans are hanging the concussion arguments on him asking what round it was, which is something you see all the time in boxing. In the middle of battle you're not chalking them up in your head. Fuck, we've even seen trainers asking what round it is.
 
#33 ·
I love how you all think just calling me a troll because you disagree with me is an adequate argument. I believe the first requisite of being a top sportsmen is to actually be physically in shape to do that sport at an elite level. Ruiz clearly has talent but you can't be treated seriously unless you put in the effort to get in shape. I believe he isn't good enough to beat AJ under normal circumstances and if I'm wrong then I hope AJ does the right thing and retires immediately as he clearly would have lost what made him a great champ. Under those circumstances I hope Wilder beats him in the inevitable Unification as whatever people say about DW's questionable technique at least his training doesn't involve eating all the pies!
 
#38 ·
The number of factors which had to go right, both boxers body positions, angles of punches, blocks of preceding punches, movement and speed of both boxers, the variables could easily be in the hundreds if not thousands which if any one had been different would have very likely lead to a different outcome.
This is 100% true.

For 100% of every fight that's ever happened in all of time. In fact it is true for everything in life.

All of those variables, however, are a result of the performance of the fighters in the ring... the reason Joshua got clipped was that Ruiz throws shorter, faster and very powerful hooks while AJ is throwing longer, looping, slower, arguably more powerful hooks and in that set of conditions, Ruiz hooks are going to reach their target sooner. There was no luck involved in any of this.
 
#39 ·
The number of factors which had to go right, both boxers body positions, angles of punches, blocks of preceding punches, movement and speed of both boxers, the variables could easily be in the hundreds if not thousands which if any one had been different would have very likely lead to a different outcome. This is not to say that Ruiz didn't do a good job to put himself in the best position to be able to do this but this was a low percentage outcome, run this scenario ten times and it ends up with this outcome 1 or 2 times.
Ruiz has been fighting since he was about 5 years old. You don't think he has learned a bit over that time about body positioning, the angle of punches, blocking preceding punches, movement and speed?

You are trying to make it sound like AJ had a bad night on the roulette wheel at the casino.

Such an insufferable troll.
 
#43 ·
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/boxing/49683404

Got to give props to Ben Davison for backing McCracken in this.

This whole thing is stupid as of course any Heavyweight punching another in the head is going to have a concussive effect and they are all concussed to some degree. Fighters know the risks and you can't be a boxer and avoid concussion entirely you will always end up with it to some degree.
I gave you the benefit of the doubt early on but its clear you're nothing more than a boring troll. You're just as bad as the extreme fury nuthuggers
 
#48 ·
Interesting comments from Spencer Oliver, who implies it's quite common for AJ to get buzzed, and when he does, he takes a while to recover:

Oliver, who was placed in a coma after being injured in a fight in 1998, added: "I have known Joshua since day one, when he gets hurt he takes a few rounds [to recover]. So I understand what Rob was thinking.

"He was clearly concussed, we all saw that. But if I was in the same situation I'm not sure I would have pulled Joshua out."

BBC.com
 
#50 ·
Was just listening to the 2nd episode of the Carl Froch podcast, (I know. God help me).

Anyway, Carl said he was concussed in the Pascal fight, and in an early fight against an Eastern Euro journeyman. (doesn't mention the Groves or Taylor fights). He doesn't remember much of the Pascal fight to this day.

He defends Rob for letting him fight on, and letting AJ fight on. Basically arguing safety is paramount, and Rob has pulled fighters out in the past, but that you need to allow fighters a chance to fight on and turn it round.

Also points out there is a ref and ringside Dr, and when AJ showed he could no longer fight on the ref stopped it straight away.
 
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