James Ali Bashir Has Been Released from Hospital!
The day before undisputed middleweight champion Claressa “T-rex” Shields (9-0, 2 KO’s) was set to stage her first hometown fight since turning professional all hell broke loose. The calamity transpired at the weigh-in.
While T-rex checked her weight before stepping on the official scale Shields’ sister and her opponent Ivana Habazin’s (20-3, 7 KO’s) chief second, James Ali Bashir, began arguing. The two traded tough talk and profanity in a brief but intense scene. When the two separated Bashir went to sit down and a short time later the 71 year old was blind-sided with a devastating sucker punch.
The impact of the underhanded blow knocked Ali unconscious, fractured bones in his face and reduced him to a bloody heap on the floor. Immediately after the unscrupulous attack his distraught fighter could be seen clutching his head and pleading for help.
Bashir was immediately rushed to the hospital for medical treatment. Outside of the fracture, it initially appeared as if James Ali had suffered the worst of his ordeal. He had not.
Several days after the attack, Bashir was once more rushed to the hospital. It was discovered that he had a bleed on the brain and doctors were extremely concerned! Given his age, and the trauma that he had suffered, the brain bleed was am especially serious threat to his survival.
Recently, boxing has suffered many tragedies related to brain bleeds and it appeared that another boxing figure was going to fall victim.
Thankfully, since being taken in to address the brain bleed, the former assistant trainer to the late great Hall of fame coach Emanuel Steward has been released from the hospital. The outstanding news came by way of Mark Taffet who is the manager for Shields.
Hopefully, there will be no more scares, especially life-threatening ones, in relation to this very regrettable story.
As a result of the attack, besides all of Bashir’s physical hardships, the Shields v Habazin fight was completely scrapped. When the bout was trashed, Shield’s lost out on a $1 million dollar pay day. The substantial purse would have stood as the largest payday for any female in the history of the sport.
By: Bakari Simpson
