This Video Of Boxer Maxim Dadashev's Trainer BEGGING Him To Stop The Fight That Later Killed Him Is Really, Really Hard To Watch
I reached out to the boxing guys who could give this blog and this fighter the proper respect that it, and he, deserves, but unfortunately none of them are around today. I will just say that from a purely human standpoint, knowing what ended up happening with Dadashev, it’s absolutely gut-wrenching.
Junior welterweight Maxim Dadashev died on Tuesday morning as a result of brain injuries sustained in an 11th-round knockout loss to Subriel Matias on Friday night at the MGM National Harbor in Oxon Hill, Maryland. He was 28.
Donatas Janusevicius, Dadashev’s strength and conditioning coach, who had been with him at UM Prince George’s Hospital Center in Cheverly, Maryland, since he was taken there following the fight, and trainer Buddy McGirt confirmed his death. [ESPN]
As hard as it is for an outsider to watch, I can’t even imagine the level of heartbreak for his trainer Buddy McGirt – the man in the video. McGirt CLEARLY cared about him and did everything in his power to keep him safe, even as Dadashev said he wanted to keep going.
After the round, McGirt loudly told Dadashev, “I’m going to stop it, Max. Max, you’re getting hit too much.”
Dadashev shook his head to indicate he did not want the fight stopped, but McGirt kept at it: “Please, Max, please. Let me do this. OK? OK? Look at me. Please.”
Dadashev shook his head again and McGirt said, “If I don’t, the referee’s gonna do it. C’mon, Max. Please.”
McGirt didn’t wait for another signal from Dadashev.
“That’s it, doc,” he told the ringside physician. Then he turned to referee Kenny Chevalier: “That’s it.”
..McGirt said he first thought about throwing in the towel in the ninth round but knew he had to stop it after the 11th.
“I saw him fading and when he came back to the corner (after the 11th round), my mind was already made up,” McGirt said. “I was just asking him out of respect, but my mind was made up. I wasn’t going to let him go out there.”
Despite the fact that he tried – and we all saw how hard – that feeling of guilt regardless is going to be hard to shake. That’s just the nature of the sport.
“It just makes you realize what type of sport we’re in, man,” McGirt told ESPN. “He did everything right in training, no problems, no nothing. My mind is like really running crazy, right now. Like what could I have done differently? But at the end of the day, everything was fine (in training).
“He seemed OK, he was ready, but it’s the sport that we’re in. It just takes one punch, man.”
Just a horrible situation. Dadshev was a married father of a young son, who went pro in 2016 and was 13-1 with 11 KOs – he passed away Tuesday morning.
“Great, great guy. He was a trainers dream,” McGirt said. “If I had two more guys like him, I wouldn’t need anybody else because he was truly dedicated to the sport.”
Reporting via Ariel Helwani, ESPN