Magomed Abdusalamov (Courtesy photo: The Edelsteins Faegenburg & Brown)

It was only the first round of the 2013 fight at Madison Square Garden when emerging Russian heavyweight Magomed Abdusalamov took a forearm in the face from his boxing opponent, Mike Perez.

Abdusalamov would brawl on for nine more rounds in the brutal match, in which his face swelled horribly and he took ferocious blows to the head. After losing the fight, he was examined briefly ringside and then by two locker room doctors for only about 15 minutes, before he was cleared to leave without need for neurological follow-up, according to his lawyer and a New York Times report that laid out the fighter's experience during and after the bout.

Magomed Abdusalamov (Courtesy photo: The Edelsteins Faegenburg & Brown)

Outside of the Garden, though, the 32-year-old would suddenly fall to one knee, vomit and be rushed to a hospital. There, despite emergency surgery for brain bleeding, he would suffer brain damage, and today the married father of three is severely paralyzed and cognitively damaged, according to the lawyer and reports.

In the years since the 2013 match, Abdusalamov, his family and their lawyer, Paul Edelstein, have fought intensively in court, launching—and settling—detailed lawsuits against both the state and physicians who examined or watched the boxer in the moments after the fight. At the same time, they've pushed publicly—while at times gaining significant attention—for a new boxer-protection law in New York, to be called "Mago's Law," which would mandate emergency room-type care inside or near the arena for boxers who suffer head trauma.

The proposed law is still trying to get off the ground, said Edelstein in an interview Monday with the New York Law Journal. Although there is at least one state senator, Liz Krueger, a Democrat, who appears to be researching the issue and the proposal for Mago's Law.

The lawsuits, on the other hand, have both resulted in major settlements for Abdusalamov and his family, which must provide the once-brawny athlete with around-the-clock care, according to Edelstein and reports.

In 2017, the state and its athletic commission agreed to pay $22 million to Abdusalamov and family members. Then, earlier this month, after more than five years of litigation with three doctors and their insurers, an undisclosed settlement was reached as jury selection in the medical malpractice suit was about to kick off in Brooklyn Supreme Court.

According to at least one boxing publication that cited an unnamed source—BoxingScene.com—the settlement amount in the malpractice and negligence suit was for at least $5 million, though Edelstein won't disclose an amount, and lawyers for the three physicians could not be reached for comment Monday.

Edelstein, a veteran Manhattan personal injury trial lawyer, did say, though, that "the family was thrilled" with the malpractice case's outcome, because "it not only gives them closure on the long litigation, but it helps give them the financial security that [Abdusalamov] needs to live as best a life as he can."

He also described a contest with defendant physicians Drs. Anthony Curreri, Osric King and Gerard Varlotta and their attorneys that took "an immense volume of work," including, he said, 17 pretrial conferences over two years in which a possible settlement was discussed again and again.

Then, finally, he said, it all "culminat[ed] in a four-hour, last-ditch session before [New York Supreme Court] Judge Marsha Steinhardt which resolved it just prior to jury selection" on Sept. 3.

"They had zero chance to win at trial," Edelstein said, speaking of the doctors and their defense lawyers and why he thought settlement was finally reached. He added, "It's an overwhelmingly strong case against them, because they [the doctor defendants] cleared [Abdusalamov] within 18 minutes [of the fight ending] following his multiple confirmed head traumas."

"I don't think that any of their experts could have possibly gotten on the witness stand and survived a cross-examination by me," Edelstein, of The Edelsteins Faegenburg & Brown, also said.

Michael Kelly of Fumuso, Kelly, Swart, Farrell, Polin & Christesen in Hauppauge, New York, who helped represent Curreri and King in the lawsuit, could not be reached for comment Monday. Charles Bach of Heidell, Pittoni, Murphy & Bach helped represent Vorlotta and also couldn't be reached. (Curreri, an ophthalmologist, and Varlotta, a sports medicine specialist, examined Abdusalamov in a locker room after the fight. King, a ringside physician, examined the fighter at the ring just moments after the bout ended, according to Edelstein. All three doctors were approved by the New York State Athletic Commission.)

Edelstein on Monday also said that six medical experts and two economic damages experts were ready to testify for the plaintiffs at trial, and some five medical experts and two economic damages experts were likewise ready for the defendants. Moreover, he said, he'd planned to call 35 witness at trial, and he'd conducted 15 daylong depositions in the years preceding it. He also noted that there were 51 motions during the lawsuit, including a successful cross-motion to dismiss Varlotta, followed by a successful renewal motion that brought the physician back into the case.

Still, he said, even with the malpractice and state case's settlements, it is the chance to get a "Mago's Law" passed in New York—and perhaps later nationally—that remains crucial to both Abdusalamov's family and himself.

Their proposal, he said, is two-pronged and fairly simple: one, that the state keep at least one medical doctor certified in emergency medicine at professional boxing matches to examine boxers after fights; and, two, that, if a fighter suffers any head trauma, he or she must be treated like emergency room patients by receiving a CT scan for brain injury or by monitoring for no less than one hour for signs and symptoms of brain injury.

According to Edelstein, if those rules had been in place at Abdusalamov's fight, his life-changing brain damage might not have happened.

For instance, alleged the lawyer, while Varlotta and Curreri examined Abdusalamov physically in the post-fight locker room and reportedly asked him questions, such as whether he had head pain (the fighter's answers have been a point of dispute), he was never sent for a diagnostic scan or examined later in the hour.

And that hourlong time frame, argued Edelstein, is critical, because clots and bleeding in the brain can take time to form or be revealed. And, therefore, he said, medical experts call the one-hour follow-up a "Golden Rule."

He also said too many boxers "are provided very little protection in a sport where the goal is hit each other in the head and inflict damage."

As for Mago's Law, he said he hopes Krueger or another legislator will soon propose a bill, and he noted that the late U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, years ago proposed a unified federal boxing standard to improve fighter safety while pointing in part to Abdusalamov's injuries.

Krueger, for her part, said through a spokesman Monday only that she "is just beginning to research this issue and what potential legislation would need to accomplish," and there is "no other info[rmation] to offer" at this point.

In Connecticut, meanwhile, where Abdusalamov and his family live, the now-38-year-old ex-athlete remains paralyzed down the right side of his body, and he struggles with speech and other functions.

Over the last year or so, said Edelstein, he has "miraculously improved," and so he now seems to have "a real understanding of what is going on around him." Still, said the lawyer, the ex-heavyweight's plight is "horrifying" because he remains "locked into his body" and the limitations of what paralysis and brain damage will allow.