timeout4u
Bankspieler
- Beiträge
- 6.367
- Punkte
- 113
NEW YORK (AP) -- A former boxer who says he sustained permanent brain damage in a 2000 bout against Arturo Gatti is now suing, saying Gatti weighed too much for the fight.
Joey Gamache, 39, and his wife filed a lawsuit in federal court Feb. 21 alleging breach of contract over the Feb. 26, 2000 bout at Madison Square Garden. Gatti won the fight.
By contract, both fighters had to weigh 141 pounds by at least eight hours before the bout started, according to the suit filed by lawyer Keith Sullivan. Gatti made weight the day before the fight, but the suit said his weight was "falsely represented" then and that he was actually 160 pounds by the time he got into the ring the next day.
Gatti overwhelmed Gamache in the first round and the fight was stopped 20 seconds into Round Two, but Gamache was hospitalized for two days afterward, the suit said.
"As a result of the devastating punishment inflicted by the severely overweight defendant ... [Gamache] has sustained severe and permanent neurological damages and injuries, which caused him to end his career as a professional boxer," according to the suit.
Gamache, who suffers from migraine headaches he attributes to the beating, now works as a boxing trainer at Gleason's Gym in Brooklyn.
"Every day is a battle," Sullivan said Thursday. "He has great difficulty getting past these migraine headaches and he takes a cocktail of medications to get through it."
Gamache has a separate complaint pending before the state Court of Claims against the New York State Athletic Commission over the administration of the weigh-in, Sullivan said.
Donald Tremblay, spokesman for Bloomfield, N.J.-based Main Events, Gatti's promoter, said the company had not been served with the complaint and wouldn't comment on its claims.
A breach-of-contract suit filed by Gamache over the fight was voluntarily withdrawn by him in August 2004, with the endorsement of U.S. District Judge Laura Taylor Swain, according to Tremblay.
Tremblay said he didn't know what Gatti's weight was by the time the fight began.
"I don't know how much weight he gained afterward. That was when Arturo was really working hard to make weight. How much he actually gained, I don't know. He worked hard to get down and make the weight. After that, when you replenish with liquids you're going to gain some weight back. Some guys gain more than others."
:thumb: Ein Versuch ist es wert. Persönlich würde ich die Schuld aber nicht einmal so sehr bei Gatti suchen. Die Mehrheit der Boxer versucht auf irgendeine Art diverse Vorteile für einen Kampf zu erlangen. Manchmal moralisch sicher nicht koscher, aber mit Moral allein kommt nur selten ein Boxer nach ganz oben, wenn überhaupt. Von der Wahl der Handschuhe bis hin zu einer Woche mehr Vorbereitung oder eben der Gewichtsvorteil etc. - in der Realität kann man sich nie auf irgendwelche Rankings oder Analysen verlassen und es gibt leider keine leichten Gegner, auch wenn Rekorde, die Einschätzung des gegnerischen Boxkönnens oder frühere Fights evtl. darauf schließen lassen. Allerdings war die Sache bei Gatti damals schon heftig, auch deshalb weil Gatti in Wahrheit nie das erforderliche Gewicht gebracht hatte und bei der Waage manipuliert wurde. Und Camache bzw. sein Team hatte keine wirkliche Chance aus diesem Kampf kurzfristig herauszukommen und die wahren Ausmaße hat man bei Team Camache sicher erst nach dem Fight so richtig begriffen und einschätzen können.
Vielleicht bewirkt Camaches Schritt ja wenigstens etwas, auch wenn ich nicht unbedingt an einen großen Erfolg glaube.