I was dismayed to see boxer Joe Calzaghe win the BBC 
Sports
Personality of the Year, with fellow boxer Ricky Hatton coming third.
It’s nothing personal, but there is no way that I consider boxing a competitive sport, to me it is barbaric and nothing more than two grown men bashing each other up. What is the difference between this and two toddlers slogging it out in a playpen who don’t know any better?
I am sure the British Medical Association will be equally appalled. Since the early 1980s, they have called for a total ban on amateur and professional boxing in the UK.The BMA’s opposition to boxing is based on medical evidence that reveals the risk not only of acute injury but also of chronic brain damage which is sustained cumulatively in those who survive a career in boxing. It may take many years before boxers and ex-boxers find out they are suffering from brain damage. The BMA believes that there is sufficient evidence for the risks of brain injury associated with boxing for the Secretary of State at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport to call for an independent inquiry into these risks.
As a trustee of Headway Cambridgeshire, which provides rehabilitation for adults with an acquired brain injury, I share those very real concerns.
We have banned dog fighting in the UK, so why do we treat our animals better than our men?
Barry McGuigan puts up quite a good argument for boxing, citing the route boxing can give disadvantaged youngsters out of poverty and away from crime, teaching them discipline and other skills.
But I understand your argument Ellee and agree, but does that mean banning the sport? Probably, it wouldn’t bother me any (and we wouldn’t have a sport if it wasn’t for the spectators enjoying the specatacle – what must they be like?!) I can’t stand to even look at a picture of boxing, it’s barbaric but would I rather all those kids end up on the street rather than in the gym? On the street hitting each other without supervision. I don’t know.
I totally agree with you Ellee. Only men would think this even an OK activity, let alone a competitive sport.
I know it’s impossible to see, Ellee but for many boys from the wrong side of the tracks, boxing is their passport out of their squalour. If they succeed, they’re locked into it by their success. These things happen as you describe.
I played rugby and death and injury didn’t cross our minds – only the strategy at the time. We mustn’t mollycoddle our children – they must be allowed to breathe and climb trees and fall off bicycles and so on.
It’s the only way boys can find their feet.
I agree; for two boxers to come first and third shows the poor state of British sport this year. Paula Radcliffe wiould have been a far more deserving winner.
..because dogs can’t choose, and men can?
I don’t imagine many kids get lifted out of poverty through boxing. I don’t know any and I did it throughout my youth. My sparring partner at sixteen was Lous Gent who went on to fight Nigel Benn for a world title – he was stopped in the 4th round and the last I heard of him he was labouring on a farm. Out of the hundreds of kids I knew he’s the most successful.
I’m sure I recieved brain damage from it(seriously), I am not the same person you see here in writing. My wit is definitely delayed and dulled in real time. People often think I’m thick and I put it down to the punishment I took through sparring with Lous Gent.
Further to this I think that gloved combat is worse than other forms such as grappling. Gloves prevent superficial injury but not the shock to the brain – the boxer is able to remain cut free therefore he stays in the fight taking more brain shock. A bare knuckle contest is safer in my view.
So I agree with you, Ellee. It’s barbaric. Barry McGuigan may well be articulate and unaffected – I bet many of his opponents aren’t though.
(PS, the post which you commented on my blog wasn’t about boxing.)
Further to that comment. I don’t believe that it’s the contests where the damage is done. The Amateur Boxing Association (ABA) may well argue that there are only 3 rounds at amateur level – I was training twice a week for a total of 5 hours, probably 90 minutes of that full-contact training. If you were selected for a squad the training was much more.
Ban it and it goes to bareknuckle fighting without rules. Like it or not it is an innate part of men’s makeup that many of them will want to gamble on the results of fights between other men and as long as there is money in it people will do it. (actually I suspect that some men will want to do it even without a financial incentive). It may not give many a route out of poverty, but it does give young men a vent for aggression, as well as discipline and fitness. It is also a highly skilled art. I agree it’s not a very appealing art, but nor are many other aspects of the world we live in. Sorry Ellee-I think you have to live with it, but not enjoy it or encourage it.
Mens sana, I’m surprised at your comment, and you a consultant too. I wonder if studies have been carried out to see if bareknuckle fighting does take over once boxing is banned. It is already banned in some countries –
Icleand, Slovenia, New Guindea, Norway, Cuba and Iran, according to this link:
http://www.boxingscene.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-125703.html
Kevin, you are far from thick, don’t say such silly things.
My concern about this is the terrible injuries it inflicts, I can’t imagine anyone in their right mind wanting to put themselves up for a beating – and then call it sport.
Should we ban rally driving too? What about horse racing? Deep-sea fishing?
I don’t say such silly things, Ellee – other people do 🙂
I feel that there are much more effective and less harmful martial arts, Mens Sana. Actually Mixed Martial Arts (or cage fighting as it is called) use grappling gloves so thin that it virtually is bare knuckle. The rules and realism of this sport mean that boxing is rendered ineffective and the fighters more often resort to grappling rather than battering each other’s brains out. Most fights are won by submission rather than knock out – the head is no longer the principle target whereas chokes and arm bars are the desired techniques. The contests are well refereed and the contestants as disciplined and honourable as they are in boxing.
I find boxing boring and stupid by comparison to MMA which is far more intelligent and skillful in my view. It offers the very same outlets to kids as boxing too.
I think it’s barbaric, too – but then, I hate all sport!
Hi Ellee, was channel hopping over lunch and saw on ‘The Wright Stuff’ that 80% of professional boxers sustain serious brain damage.
The argument of injury being possible in other sports is not valid as in boxing head injury is the point and not accidental.
On that prog I mentioned, it was stated that it has been mooted that boxing is taught in schools. If some chaps are bent on violence anyway and it can be done more safely in a boxing ring then fine, but I see the danger now of glorifying this as a sport – there is no way my boy is doing this at school. And of course if I prevent him he would be bullied. I have completely changed my view Ellee and jumped off the fence – IT SHOULD BE BANNED.
I am surprised Hamilton didnt win. 🙁
I have never read anything so patronising in my life, from the comparison with toddlers to the final, breathtaking assumption that it is for you to decide how to “treat” men in the same way that you make such decisions for dogs.
The way to handle the male instinct for confrontation and combat is to channel it into sport, not ban it and force it both underground and into the streets and pubs. Humans are not the only species in which males have this instinct. Whether you like it or not is beside the point.
Boxing is one of the original sports, included in the original Olympics. Of course it’s a sport. Synchronised swimming is a less certain claimant to the name.
The fact that injury is a possible outcome of an activity is not a reason to ban the activity. Where would you stop? Rugby? Motor racing? Rock climbing? Would Mohammed Ali go back in time and spend his life as a motor mechanic to avoid the brain injury he suffered? I strongly doubt it. Even when injury does result that does not necessarily suggest tragedy.
For heaven’s sake. You’re entitled to dislike boxing. Other people are entitled to like it and you are NOT entitled to prohibit their consensual activities.
Its interesting when we compare how we treat animals and humans. You could use a similar argument for putting an animal out of its misery (who can’t chose) and apply it to the debate about humans who may also choose the right to die, who in many cases can choose. Sometimes i do think we treat animals better than humans.
On boxing I agree with Tom Paine. People choose to enter the ring, and as such I don’t think you can compare it to the likes of dog fighting etc…
If you have to ban anything then there’s obviously a market for it. Ban it, and that market will be satisified by the unscrupulous and uncontrolled. Alcohol, porn, drugs…
Boxing is far safer than most sports including many of the so-called non-contact variety.