The Athlete’s Voice Calls for a Change in Fighter Safety: ‘Hopefully We Can Save a Life’

Boxing has moved on. Canelo Alvarez wins. “The Monster” does wonderfully monstrous things again. Ryan Garcia continues to make headlines on social media, and Jermall Charlo gets arrested and stripped of his title.

In other words, the news cycle has forgotten Ardi Ndembo.

It was only a little over a month ago, on April 5 in Miami, Florida, that the Congo native was knocked out by Nestor Santana in a Team Combat League (TCL) bout and never recovered from the injuries he sustained.

Ndembo passed away on April 27, at the age of 27.

To many, it’s the price of doing business in the hardest game, an unfortunate byproduct of being in a sport where head trauma is part of the deal. But to others, the first death in the ring since Kazuki Anaguchi last December hit hard, like they all do. And to one of these people, Carla Duran, it is her mission to help change a culture that has long needed changing.

“I’m not trying to start a pillow-fighting league,” said Duran, co-founder (with Rose Gracie) of the Athlete’s Voice Committee, a sub-committee of the Association of Boxing Commissions (ABC). “I understand what this is. I understand what the sport is. But this was just an institutional failure. And so I looked at it and I said, if we can get fighters and stakeholders to understand different options, in training specifically, that could just mitigate long-term damage, then that’s a win for me.”

After Ndembo’s death, the Athlete’s Voice released a statement asking for a full investigation into the circumstances of the fatal bout, which included allegations of Ndembo being knocked out in sparring leading up to the Santana fight. The statement read, in part:

“It is crucial that every aspect of this incident is thoroughly examined to determine how similar tragedies can be avoided in the future. 

The findings of this investigation should lead to clear guidance for all involved in combat sports, including but not limited to fighters, trainers, officials, medical personnel, gym personnel, cut persons, managers, promoters, commissions and sanctioning bodies. 

We emphasize the importance of following the guidelines set forth by the Association of Ringside Physicians, particularly regarding post-knockout protocols and concussion management. This is crucial for the safety and well-being of athletes.”

Yahoo, the BBC and a few other outlets picked up the statement. After that, crickets.

“Sadly, there’s been nothing more,” said Las Vegas’ Duran. “Here in town, the small fight community that we are, everyone knows about it and everyone’s talking about it, but on a bigger scale, no one knows about it and no one’s talking about it. It’s really sad.”

It is, because at this moment there are more questions than answers. The training camp knockout allegations are scary. If true, did this contribute to what happened to Ndembo against Santana? 

According to the ABC website, Florida does not require a pre-fight neurological exam; would this have picked up anything? 

A report of the fight on Wikipedia (obviously not the best source) said of the fight, “Video showed Santana was throwing hooks to the back of Ndembo’s head (rabbit punches, in violation of boxing rules) at 30 seconds into the round, which the referee did not notice until slightly later, when she warned Santana.”

Could rabbit punches have been the culprit?

Again, more questions than definitive answers. Once those answers are found, none will bring Ndembo back to his two children. But, hopefully, this will be a wake-up call to all fighters, because the bottom line is, they are the last line of defense against themselves.

Simply put, fighters fight. And while I never met Ardi Ndembo, I’m going to guess that, at 6-foot-7, 234 pounds, and with an 8-0 pro record that included 7 knockouts, he probably thought he could walk through walls, and even if he wasn’t feeling 100 hundred percent, a one-round fight (TCL events are comprised of a series of one-round fights) against the 2-0 Santana was likely something he felt he could get through.

Boxing had other plans, as it often does. So what helps create a new reality and not a sad one? It starts in the gym, where boxers aren’t often monitored for head injuries and where gym wars are encouraged as being “old school.” It’s true, and with the machismo involved in the sport, taking some time off after a knockout in the gym or embracing a break after a hard few rounds of sparring is seen as weakness. Duran knows this, not just as someone who has been around the fight game her entire life as the daughter of iconic cutman Jacob “Stitch” Duran, but also in her day job working with NFL alumni, who have had their own battles with brain injuries.

“I’ve had talks with my teammates about how a lot of our older guys, they’re messed up, too,” she said. “And they always say, ‘I’d do it again in a heartbeat.’ And I say, perhaps they do, but if they knew all of this information that we’re trying to present to them, if they knew that, then now would they look back and would they have done it differently?”

Fighters, and football players, for that matter, are built differently. And I don’t doubt for a second that they would all do it again, even if they knew what their later years might look like. But information is power, and one of the first initiatives of the Athlete’s Voice was to consult with the Association of Ringside Physicians on informational posters to be placed in gyms and with athletic commissions around the country to educate on brain health.

“They mean well, but they were like, ‘Oh, all our information is on our website,’” said Duran. “And I looked, and it’s like 12 pages, size-10 font, and I’m like, ‘No fighter’s ever going to go on there; no coach is ever going to go on there. Let’s collaborate on this.’ And so, Rose loves graphic design; we started teaming up and went back and forth until they approved it. We made these really cool posters and we started taking them to athletic commissions and just saying, ‘Make sure that they know this.’ It’s the informed participation angle that I’ve been pushing so hard.”

Not everyone is going to be on board, and there’s a long fight ahead, but it’s a start. And if the tragic death of Ardi Ndembo makes one boxer think twice about going through with a fight in favor of taking care of their health, then that death wasn’t in vain, a footnote or headline buried after a week on social media.

“We have to change the culture,” said Duran. “It’s a hard, hard campaign and it needs to be a grassroots effort, but it’s something that we’re willing to do, and we’ve already been working towards. Will it make a huge change to change the sport forever? I don’t know. But can we save one life, as corny as that sounds? Yes. Have we already started talking to people, and guys are actually attributing these posters to changing the way that they train? Yes. And that’s all I need. That’s huge. It’s better than it was before. And hopefully we can save a life.”