DAVID ISAACSON | 45 seconds of pride might have cost Lamati his life

What can happen in 45 seconds? Last year, just 31 athletes around the globe ran the men’s 400m in that time or less.

It doesn’t seem like much, but for boxer Ludumo Lamati it was probably the difference between life and death.

The hospitalisation of the junior-featherweight with a brain injury in Belfast this weekend has once again driven home the dangers of boxing.

The fighter, who lost his unbeaten record to Englishman Nick Ball, is in an induced coma in a stable condition. The full extent of the damage, if any, will be known only after he regains consciousness.

He collapsed in the corner soon after trainer Phumzile Matyhila, who was seconded by Colin Nathan, had thrown in the towel.

It turned out to be a timeous stoppage, with just 45 seconds of the fight to go.

There are many cornermen out there who might have let pride get in the way and allowed Lamati see it out to the final bell. And that might have been a fatal decision.   

No boxer likes to lose inside the distance, and even Lamati questioned the stoppage as he returned to his corner. A true warrior would rather be carried out on his shield than quit early, which is why boxers need people around them to protect them.

Straight afterwards, when Lamati was asked how he felt, he replied that he was okay, and then seconds later, he collapsed.

His promoter, Larry Wainstein, who was ringside, said on SABC TV news that the boxer underwent surgery.

Wainstein praised the rapid response of the medical personnel at ringside and the expertise of doctors at the hospital.

Paramedics were in the ring before Lamati collapsed. I can tell you that in South Africa I have never witnessed, nor been told about, that type of speedy response.

But the real heroes of this tragedy are to be found in Lamati’s corner. It was Nathan who suggested they throw the towel in and Matyhila, clearly in agreement, responded immediately.

Matyhila, a former professional South African champion, also won the country’s first Commonwealth Games medal after isolation at Kuala Lumpur 1998. As a trainer, Nathan has more experience.

He has been down this road before. In 2008, one of his fighters, Amon Baloyi, collapsed at the start of the 12th round against Patrick Malinga, and Nathan was criticised for not stopping the fight earlier.

Baloyi recovered and was able to fight again, but Nathan learned a hard lesson that day, and it’s stuck. When Hekkie Budler, a boxer who is like a son to the trainer, was taking a pasting by Hiroto Kyoguchi in late 2018, Nathan ended it a couple of rounds early.

Budler lost a world title that night, but the value of a belt is chicken feed compared to a human life.

There have been times in the local ring where the boxing spectacle has overshadowed the value of human life.

But then one gets the champions of human. It says something for Rodney Berman, who has been promoting fights since 1977, that he’s never had to endure a fatality.

He had one undercard boxer on a 2004 show collapse in the dressing room. He was rushed to a private hospital where he underwent life-saving surgery at Berman’s expense.

It’s understood that Lamati was taken to an NHS hospital without anyone asking for a penny. And there have been cases in the US where the promoters pay insurance for all fighters in the event of any injury.

There are lessons here for South African boxing, but the base line requirement for any trainer or referee should be empathy.

In a township show many years ago the late Granville Gorton was refereeing a fight and in the first round one of the fighters suffered a flash knockdown.

The boxer got up, easily beating the count, but there was something about it that Gorton didn’t like and he waved it over, to the consternation of fans. They saw it as a soft stoppage.

The next morning he received a phone call telling him the boxer had gone home after the tournament and collapsed. He was taken to hospital and underwent surgery and made a full recovery.

Decades later, Gorton could not explain what made him stop the fight, but his gut saved that fighter’s life.

The instinct and the ability to act upon that instinct by both Matyhila and Nathan may turn to be the critical part of Lamati’s story.

Here’s hoping the fighter makes a full recovery.

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