28-year-old Russian boxer Maxim Dadashev has died as a result of injuries picked up during his TKO loss on Friday night, as confirmed by his trainer Buddy McGirt and strength coach Donatas Janusevicius on ESPN.
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This footage was then shared of his trainer begging him to stop the fight in between rounds, and it’s not easy to watch knowing that he later died as a result of his brain injuries.
This video of Buddy McGirt urging Maxim Dadashev to stop fighting was hard to watch Friday, it’s even harder now. Heart-breaking. pic.twitter.com/BNjsdpJfle
— Ariel Helwani (@arielhelwani) July 23, 2019
Damn. Can’t help but feel completely gutted watching that video, so can’t imagine how his trainer must be feeling, not to mention his coach, friends and family.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=slzFWrfKGZU
Tragic, horrific news out of the boxing world today. https://t.co/AZTyzaDGFn
— Ariel Helwani (@arielhelwani) July 23, 2019
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.”
As we all saw he tried so hard to get him to stop the fight, but it’s going to be hard to shake that feeling of guilt:
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 really, really tragic situation. Maxim Dadashev is survived by his wife and young son and was 13-1 with 11 KOs – this loss was actually his first. Brutal.
For something a bit lighter if you need it, here’s a video of a guy being attacked by 6 baby pugs.
