Russian boxer Maxim Dadashev has died from injuries he sustained during a fight on Friday night, according to his trainer, Buddy McGirt. Dadashev was 28.
“It just makes you realise what type of sport we’re in, man,” McGirt told ESPN on Tuesday. “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.”
Dadashev was placed in a medically induced coma after his loss to Subriel Matias in an IBF junior welterweight title eliminator bout. Dadashev underwent surgery at UM Prince George’s Hospital Center, Maryland, for bleeding on the brain. On Saturday, doctors at the hospital said the fighter had suffered severe brain damage and his death was confirmed on Tuesday.
Matias and Dadashev’s fight was brutal and was stopped by McGirt after the 11th round, when he decided his fighter had taken too much damage. Dadashev shook his head when McGirt told him he was stopping the fight. “If I don’t, the referee’s gonna do it. C’mon, Max. Please,” McGirt said. At that point McGirt told the ringside doctor and referee he was throwing in the towel.
“I saw him fading and when he came back to the corner [after the 11th round], my mind was already made up,” McGirt said on Tuesday. “I was just asking him out of respect, but my mind was made up. I wasn’t going to let him go out there.”
Dadashev collapsed and started vomiting on the way back to the locker room and left the arena on a stretcher.
“I hope that Maxim is all right,” Matias said after the fight. “He is a great fighter and a warrior.”
Dadashev was born in St Petersburg but was based in California. He was undefeated in 13 fights going into Friday’s bout. He was married with one child.
