Boxer Danny Green Retires with His Brain Intact

By Dave “Large” Larzelere
One thing that every boxing fan has to wrestle with in his or her conscience is the condition in which the sweet science often leaves its practitioners. The “broken-down pug†is far from a Hollywood trope. Many of the finest fighters who ever lived ended up with some version of pugilistic dementia –- Jack Dempsey, Beau Jack, Sugar Ray Robinson and Emile Griffith just to name a few, not to mention Muhammad Ali, who stands today as a living cautionary tale of what repeated head trauma can do to the most able and agile of minds.
Which is why I want to celebrate the news today that Australian light heavyweight Danny Green has decided to hang up his gloves at the age of 35. Green, a.k.a The Green Machine, is the picture of good health and in his fighting prime – last December he won his first world championship, the WBA light heavyweight title, from Stipe Drews. Since competing for Australia at the Sydney Olympics, he’s only fought 28 professional bouts, relatively few for a fighter his age. He has a popular rivalry down under with fellow Australian Anthony Mundine and a third fight between them has been in the works for the past few months that likely would have netted Green millions. He also has been named as a potential future opponent for Roy Jones, which would undoubtedly be the biggest payday of his career.
In other words, there’s considerable incentive for Danny Green to keep boxing, and no pressing reason for him to stop, unless of course you consider the fact that he is a dedicated husband and father of two and the business of fighting is a potentially fatal occupation. In a tearful announcement yesterday, he ascribed his sudden retirement to something akin to an epiphany on Easter Sunday. “I am not religious by any stretch of the imagination, but I do listen to my stomach and that is what it has told me… A lot of people will think I am crazy, but a lot of fighters stay in the game too long and that is not going to be me.â€
There are certain to be rumors that some undisclosed health problem lies behind Green’s retirement, which he denies, and Mundine already has come forward in true fighting form to claim that it’s a choice borne of cowardice. To my mind, however, it’s quite the contrary. Danny Green has fought his battles and now he’s leaving the fray in full possession of his faculties. “I have made the decision of an intelligent man,†he said yesterday, and as a fight fan who’s tired of seeing his heroes end up as vegetables, I raise my glass to that.
(Below is Green, in a less reflective moment, doling a bit of hurt to the brain of one Otis Griffin).

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