What happened to Oscar Diaz last night?

[korey1980]

I, for one did not see Oscar taking alot of punishment, and did not see it coming at all. I read he was listed in critical condition, and that he had been diagnosed as having a brain bleed. Hope it is less serious than it looked, and that the medics in the ring were just taking standard precautions. Anyone else heard any updates?

[ray_glenn]

Latest I heard is that he's not doing so well. He's unresponsive and is on a ventilator since he isn't breathing on his own, and the doctors have performed surgery to relieve the pressure building up in his cranium from the swelling and bleeding.

Besides the punishment he took from last night's fight, he's been in some brutal fights throughout his career, so it's possible that all that accumulated damage led up to last night's tragedy.

There were people at ringside shouting at the ref to stop the fight as early as the ninth round (if you go back and watch the fight, that's when it started looking like his posture was "stiffening up"... which could be taken as a sign of increasing intracranial pressure), but his corner and Diaz himself allegedly wanted to go out on his shield since he was fighting in his hometown.

[korey1980]

Latest I heard is that he's not doing so well. He's unresponsive and is on a ventilator since he isn't breathing on his own, and the doctors have performed surgery to relieve the pressure building up in his cranium from the swelling and bleeding.

Besides the punishment he took from last night's fight, he's been in some brutal fights throughout his career, so it's possible that all that accumulated damage led up to last night's tragedy.

There were people at ringside shouting at the ref to stop the fight as early as the ninth round (if you go back and watch the fight, that's when it started looking like his posture was "stiffening up"... which could be taken as a sign of increasing intracranial pressure), but his corner and Diaz himself allegedly wanted to go out on his shield since he was fighting in his hometown.

Thats terrible. Some may not agree with me, but I feel that in fights like this one fighters should be examinined in between rounds rounds, no matter if it takes an extra twenty or thirty seconds it is well worth it and could save a life. I was going back and forth trying to watch the Toney fight, so I mustve missed out on some exchanges that Diaz was getting the worst of. I ran downstairs to do something and came back up and walked in on Diaz being asked if he was ok by the ref. The next thing I see is Diaz stand up and like he was gonna hit the ref of or something, then he yelled and his legs gave out. That was the moment I knew something was seriously wrong. Looks like anothet black mark on the sport of boxing, I hate seeing **** like this happen, I just hope that Diaz pulls through and he is compensated thoroughly.

[ray_glenn]

There are some people who are apparently angry that the ref didn't stop the fight earlier (but I don't hear as much about how Diaz's corner should have known that their fighter had no chance of winning the fight on points and it didn't look like he had a chance to pull off an upset knockout, and maybe they should have thrown in the towel to protect their man from further punishment).

I can see why the ref let the fight go on, though... despite all the damage he was receiving in the fight, Diaz was still able to throw back punches. It's just one of those rare cases where a fighter looks like he's still able to intelligently defend himself, but is actually just a punch or two away from a coma.

[warp]

Diaz's own corner man wanted the fight to go on. When the ref said "How many fingers am I holding up" Tommy Brooks answered "3" for Diaz and then the ref said "that's a nice trick, that's a good way to get a fighter hurt."

"Oscar do you want to go on"
"Uuuuuuurgh" *collapses*
*Ref waves it off*

Really sad situation, but luckily the Brain surgery went ok and he's expected to wake up from the coma.

[ray_glenn]

I was just watching the video of the last couple of rounds again... it's really spine-chilling when you hear that final exchange where Diaz can't even talk anymore and just grunts/yells before collapsing. If the paramedics hadn't been so quick to get there, I have no doubt that Diaz would probably have died right there or later in the hospital (it's often said that the first 15 minutes are the most important when trying to save a boxer from intracranial bleeding and swelling). It reminded me of the tragic Boom Boom Mancini vs. Duk Koo Kim fight (the fight that basically led to boxing authorities putting a maximum 12 round limit on fights).

[PajamasNBeer]

I still remember hearing 'It appears Diaz has quit'. I was shocked. I couldn't understand why he would do that, considering he has a real fighter's heart and he was landing some shots.

Then I was almost floored when they showed the replay of him grunting and falling down. When I was watching, I didn't really see any sign to stop it, but then again I'm not a doctor. Whatever the circumstances, it's really nice to know he is going to survive and wake up from his chemically induced coma.