Boxers with bad eyes
We’re used to seeing fighters in sunglasses, whether at pressers, on ring walks, or just trying to mitigate the effects of a post-fight karaoke session. However, we very rarely see boxers in glasses.
Around 59% of the British population wears glasses, and while sight generally worsens as we get older – so folks outside the boxing age demographic could skew those results – it doesn’t explain why we see so few fighters in frames. Of course, glasses in the ring wouldn’t be possible. If a pair were sturdy enough to stand up to being hit – say, like Oakley’s high-impact frames – then they’d pose a risk of injuring the opponent.
However, the odds are high that plenty of fighters will use some form of prescription glasses in day-to-day life. Indeed, 74% of all Britain’s wear some form of corrective eyewear, from designer glasses by Ray-Ban and Hugo Boss to off-the-shelf contacts. When one considers the 1987 study where two-thirds of 74 boxers applying or renewing for New York state licenses were found to have at least one ocular injury, it’s clear that there’s going to be some crossover. Is there a stigma around astigmatism?
We start our round-up of boxers with terrible eyesight right here in the UK, with a fighter who was once destined for the top.
Let’s take a look.
Nathan Decastro
The Lincolnshire super-middleweight had good reason not to draw attention to his eyes. Decastro was diagnosed with Retinitis Pigmentosa at the age of 13 – a condition that affects peripheral vision and degrades the ability to see in dim light. Had he come clean when he first applied for a boxing license, he’d have been turned down flat. In 2020, Decastro confessed on social media that “I passed my amateur medical by cheating walking up to the eye chart, remembering the letters to then read them out from my memory to the doctor. Professional medical, I got someone else to go in as me to the optician to pass the eye test.” The BBBofC quickly revoked his license, and he retired. Not before 118 fights and two world title belts, though.
Errol Spence Jr
While he isn’t known to have bad eyesight in general, an optical injury struck Errol Spence at precisely the wrong time. He suffered a retinal tear (which, interestingly, the New York study found 24% of boxers have) in training to fight Manny Pacquiao in 2021. Spence was no stranger to the big stage, having previously fought Kell Brook – with his purse being £1m – and defeated both previously perfect Carlos Ocampo and Mikey Garcia.
However, the global interest Manny brings meant the fight on Fox PPV would have been his richest payday yet. Spence was replaced by Yordenis Ugas who beat the Pacman on a unanimous decision. While it wasn’t too damaging to Errol’s career – he subsequently defeated Ugas before being KO’d by Terence Crawford this summer – he must wish he’d have needed to put his glasses on to count the zeroes on his bank balance from a Pacquiao purse.
Joe Frazier
Frazier had issues with his left eye due to a freak accident early on in his career. A faulty speedbag in a Philly gym came loose and showered shards into the eye – while Joe only spoke of the incident to say, “My left eye went when I was young. I was working the speed bag, and some steel went in the eye, and scratched it to pieces. I was kinda blind in that eye”. By 1974, he had developed a cataract in it. When we consider that he took Ali 14 rounds in the 1977 Thrilla In Manila with an almost closed good eye, we may start to contemplate that a fully fit Smokin’ Joe might have been the greatest of them all.
Perhaps it’s an issue of glasses being perceived as not tough. Perhaps boxers don’t want to give away any info to opponents or the public that they are mere mortals. Jermall Charlo came clean in 2016 that he had a 60-day exemption from the IBF after undergoing LASIK surgery to quash rumours that he was trying to avoid a mandatory defence against Julian Williams. He was proved right, knocking out the Philly puncher in a fifth round that should probably have been stopped on the first knockdown. But, when we see Oleksandr Usyk frequently sporting what looks very much like prescription spectacles when meeting both the press and promoter Eddie Hearn, maybe we’ll start to see more. If it’s good enough for the heavyweight champ…
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