(APR 24) As a neutral observer who saw the Sumya Anani v. Katie Dallam bout---here is what I saw.  Dallam was clearly much much bigger than Anani.  However, she had almost no skill whatsoever, and that's being generous.  She did not belong in that ring.  What she did have was pure toughness. 

Dallam could take a punch, and that was to her detriment because most fighters would have been less hurt by getting knocked out.  Anani hit her often, hit her hard, and kept the pace fast.  Dallam's bigger size may have actually helped her to absorb more punishment, and again, taking more rather than simply being knocked out quickly made her suffer a greater beating, which is generally more harmful to the brain. 

 

It was a fight that was bad in its inception and probably Dallam's trainer should have thrown the towel in or the referee or doctor should have stopped it much sooner.  It was a total mismatch. 

 Fights need to be stopped when someone is just taking a beating, even if they are taking it well and giving a futile effort at fighting back.  It is often exactly those type of fighters that wind up dying or suffering brain damage.  In their defense, the reason why they didn't stop it is that Dallam always took the punches and kept fighting back, albeit ineffectively. 

Because of her toughness, when she finally went, it was too late.  Certainly though, I as a trainer would never put my fighter in a fight having such little skill, or I would stop it as soon as I realized it was that bad of a mismatch.

 

I am upset that Dateline is doing a piece on Dallam because I suspect that there are anti-women's boxing political motives behind it all.  You certainly don't see them doing a piece on football or swimming or race-car driving every time there is a death or injury in those sports, which are statistically less safe than boxing. 

Yet with boxing, when a couple women get injured, which is statistically negligible when compared to other much more dangerous sports and when considering how few the injuries are in women's boxing, there is some cautionary tale piece done by a major network.  Where's the positive pieces about women's boxing?  I just wish the media would be honest and fair.  Adam Pollack