Wednesday 30 March 2016

Boxing as sport?

I have I know blogged on this subject before but the recent fight which ended in one of the fighters lying seriously ill in hospital is really unacceptable.
The fact that the father of one of the protagonists  joined his son in the ring to tell him not to hit his opponent on the head because it was obvious that the other man was injured only makes it worse......much worse.
Why did the referee not stop the bout at that point?
It is incredible that it was allowed to continue under such circumstances.
The whole aim of this so called sport is to damage the other person in the ring.
How can this be classed as a sport ?
All the talk about the noble art can not change this fact.
When I was teaching in Essex one of my pupils died after a junior match one evening.
This brought the whole thing into focus for me...
I have listened to all the arguments about the "science" of boxing and the skill plus the fact that children from poor homes can make their way in life by fighting .
I have no doubt that skill is called for in order to survive...but is this a sport?
I suppose it can be defended by saying that if people are going to fight then the regulations put in place by the governing body are some sort of safeguard but clearly not all the time....
Boxing for me can never be described as a sport...and every time we hear of one of them being seriously hurt it just re enforces this view.
On this occasion hearing the voice of the father telling his son to aim at the body just made the whole thing very much worse...
Isn't it time to have a serious debate about downgrading it. It cannot be sport to kill or maim another human being surely?





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2 comments:

Ray Barnes said...

I absolutely agree with you Jean. Licensed regulated violence is still violence.
Sometimes I wonder which century we are living in.

UKViewer said...

Boxing is something that all of the boys in our family (including myself) did. My Uncle was a professional fighter before WW2, and my Father was the Light Weight champion of the Middle East during WW2. As a child, I went to the famous, or infamous 'Repton Club' in Hoxton to learn - but I had poor eyesight even then, and they said that I'd be useless in the ring - so, I stopped, thank God.

A couple of years later, my Uncle who'd been professional, died of a brain tumour, which he attributed to his boxing days. Medical evidence is scant in his case, but the latest medical evidence from scans is overwhelming in proving that constant concussion on the head, from whatever cause, is dangerous and can cause lasting damage. Ban it I say.