Giovani Segura at Medical City

People didn’t start asking  about the condition of fallen Aztec Warrior Giovanni Segura until the day after the fight when the euphoria over Brian Viloria’s sensational victory had died down.
You all know the story. The Viloria-Giovanni fight, dubbed as Island Assault III, was stopped by the referee in the eighth round while Viloria repeatedly bashed the Mexican in the right temple, which developed a lump that was nearly the size of a tennis ball.
Segura’s injuries must have looked really scary and gory, his handlers decided not to allow him to face the media with Brian for the post-fight press conference at the Ynares Sports Center  immediately following the tumultuous fight.
From the Ynares,  Segura was rushed  to the Medical City for treatment, which everyone probably thought would take him only as far as the emergency room.
***
The day following the fight, a colleague called saying he needed the latest update on Segura’s condition for a story he had to write. Could I help him get through to people who had direct access to the boxer, or the boxer’s camp?
Suddenly,  I realized that it had been absolutely quiet on the Segura front. There was not a word on what had happened to him after the fight. I started calling and text-messaging friends in the boxing community who might have inside information.
I got varied responses.
One scribe said he heard from a more senior scribe that Segura had incurred a fractured facial skeleton and that he had to be confined at the Medical City.
“But  he should be discharged in a couple of days,” the scribe said.
A popular TV sports personality, on the other hand, reported that Segura’s injury was technically called  a fractured orbital bone, which sounds very much like the injury suffered by Antonio Margarito following his fight with Manny Pacquiao some months back.
The TV reporter said he too was having difficulty getting through to Segura’s camp, and was starting to get the feeling that people in the know are hiding something.
“For what reason, I don’t know,” he said.
***
“Go to Brian Viloria’s Twitter account,” suggested another boxing scribe,” as I continued to doggedly pursue my “investigation” the following day. “Even he couldn’t go and visit Segura  in the hospital.”
My scribe friend was right.
Brian posted on his Twitter page that he had persistently tried to get in touch with Segura over the phone  in the afternoon and evening of last Sunday but he was unsuccessful.
“I never got to talk to him. He was either being prepped or being evaluated,” said Brian, who had wanted to drop by the hospital.
The following day though, Brian met up with members of Segura’s camp over breakfast and was informed that Segura may have to stay awhile in the hospital and is likely to undergo an operation for a broken orbital bone and also to remove blood clots.
“Please keep him in your prayers,” said Brian, who promised to check up on his friend regularly and to closely monitor his condition.
Prayers, fractured orbitals, blood clots in the head. How serious is Segura’s condition really? Why all the secrecy?

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