Boxing Crippled, Killed Frankie 'I Love My Job' Randall

His surgical mask and doctor’s smock were intended to express Frankie Randall’s unbridled joy and enthusiasm for his chosen profession

Randall’s trademark phrase was “I love my job” and I think he meant exactly that. Unfortunately, the harsh mistress which is prizefighting did not love him back.

According to friends and family members Randall, now dead at age 59, suffered greatly for a decade with Parkinson’s Disease and severe dementia.

Yes, the Tennessee man who handed Mexican icon Julio Cesar Chavez his first career loss paid the physical tax that taking punches extracts over time.

Many fight fans and people in the fight game turn their heads away from the wicked brain damage that stalwart fighters endure but, at the end of the day, members of Randall’s inner circle must ask the ultimate question which is why does society sanction such a profession?

Boxing’s defenders like to cite an icon like Jake LaMotta, who stayed alert and active well into his 90s.

But for the rare guys such as “The Raging Bull” I can cite tens of pitiful, badly damaged ex-boxers such as Bobby Chacon, Irish Jerry Quarry, Emile Griffith, my close friend Jimmy Ellis and of course my friend and lifelong idol Muhammad Ali.

Think of befuddled Sugar Ray Robinson, sitting ringside for Hagler-Hearns with LaMotta. Jake asked Sugar Ray who would win the Big Fight.

“Did I fight either one?” a confused Robinson replied.

Look up Dr. George Lundberg’s cry to abolish boxing, published decades ago in the American Medical Association Journal. Lundberg was correct then (1984) and remains correct.

Back to Randall. He had issues with alcohol and drugs but it was the job he loved which clouded his brain.

So don’t ask who killed Frankie Randall.

His beloved job left him lost in a mental and physical fog for so long.

Is it worth it?

Ask Randall’s children and other relatives.

Were the cheers and the money worth the price of admission?