Like far too many veterans, Paul Bamba’s tour of duty in Iraq as an infantry machine-gunner with the Marine Corps culminated in him ending up homeless on the streets of New York.
Battling PTSD, he spent more than a year living on the subway, riding the 6-train spanning the city from Pelham Bay Park up in the Bronx down to the Brooklyn Bridge.
Then somebody told him about Morris Park boxing gym, where willing combatants earn $10 per round sparring enthusiastic amateurs. He walked through the door hungry, came out with enough money for dinner, and had taken a glimpse down redemption road.
Aaron “Superman” Davis, former WBA welterweight champion, and trainer Bobby Miles, ran the place, and, recognising something in the eager 25-year-old mendicant volunteering to be daily sparring fodder, the pair started to hone his technique and develop his skills.
What time is kick-off and what TV channel is Wales v Ireland on? All you need to know about the Six Nations clash
Moral outrage over Saudi sportswashing ahead of world’s richest race has faded
Matt Doyle offered Californian glamour in a dull 1980s Ireland
Dan Sheehan’s remarkable recovery continues with Irish captaincy
He picked things up quickly enough, soon earning a living as a personal trainer, establishing Trifecta Boxing and Fitness, and dabbling in modelling too.
Scratching an itch from childhood, he began a belated amateur fistic career that saw him reach the quarter-finals of the New York Golden Gloves. So far, so feel good story. Especially given how far he’d come.
Born in Puerto Rico, Bamba’s mother once tried to sell him for drugs and after his father signed away all parental rights to him, he grew up in foster care.
When a military recruitment flyer fell out of a magazine he was reading at GameStop, he remembered a principal telling him a cautionary tale about a student finding structure in life as a soldier, so he called up the Marines.
A staff sergeant turned up within an hour and on his 18th birthday, he arrived on Parris Island for basic training and found himself in a war zone soon after.
“I realise I’m really just built for whatever the fuck is thrown at me and I set my sights on,” wrote Bamba on Instagram. “Some people want it handed to them and some people WANT IT. ADVERSITY is nourishing food for those strong enough to digest it.”
Turning pro in 2021 he pieced together a winning record and, some commentary on the sport this, looked set to earn a six-figure purse taking on Tommy Fury in Dubai the following year.
That bout fell through but Bamba, lately managed by rapper Ne-Yo, was 19 and 3 when he collected the WBA Gold Cruiserweight title after stopping Porky Medina on December 21st. Six days later, he was dead. No cause of death has been revealed and following John Cooney’s tragic passing in Belfast, nobody in Ireland needs reminding of the dangers inherent in the fight game.
But to run your finger along the outline of Bamba’s professional ledger is to understand the speculation about how he died and the ongoing questions it raises about those who run boxing.
Was it a brain injury? Did he take his own life because he knew the long-term damage he had already incurred? And what business did he have in a ring at all given his recent medical history?
“Mr Bamba has suffered a concussion and an episode of traumatic diplopia within this past year and now presents with increasing headaches,” wrote Dr Alina Sharinn, his neurologist in July 2023, three months after his loss to Chris Avila in New Orleans.
“His exam is notable for positive neurological findings and his MRI of the brain revealed mild white matter changes in both frontal lobes. At this time, I discussed with Mr Bamba to stop boxing temporarily, as well as avoid any other activity that can produce head trauma . . .”
Open with journalists about his brain injury, Bamba didn’t climb through the ropes again until January 2024 and then proceeded to win 14 times by knockout over the course of the calendar year.
A throwback schedule, this now disturbing workload had some crediting him with breaking Mike Tyson’s long-held record for most professional KOs in a 12-month span.
Toiling in the faraway foothills of the sport, eight of his triumphs took place off the beaten track in Colombia, three of his opponents there were local tomato cans without a single victory to their names, three more had losing records and a collective nine wins between them.
Struggling for wider recognition, even his defeat of Medina, a doughty 42 and 10 Mexican veteran, in New Jersey less than a week before his death was witnessed by just a couple of hundred people.
In the age of streaming, the only extant footage of the bout was taken with a phone camera by somebody at ringside complaining about a judge blocking sight lines.
It says much about the parlous state of the sport and those who run it that this contest at the Carteret Performing Arts Center was for some supposedly serious class of belt and considered an eliminator to identify the contender next in line for a title shot.
“Paul Bamba had to die to become well-known within the fight fraternity, let alone in the larger society,” wrote Arne K. Lang on The Sweet Science.
“One hopes that his death will inspire the sport’s regulators to be more vigilant in assaying a boxer’s medical history and, if somehow his untimely death leads to the dissolution of the fetid World Boxing Association, his legacy would be even greater.”
Bamba was 35. His story is, unfortunately, as old as boxing itself.
