The Fight Against Boxing Essay, Research Paper

The Unworthy Fight Against Fighting

The entertaining sport of boxing, an athletic event consisting of

numerous health conflictions, has been receiving some heat from legal and

medical advocates, yet ?Some of the qualities that have open boxing to

attack have, at the same time, been its salvation?(Sammons 235). Boxing,

which has been in existence and evolved from other forms of fighting longer

than this country has been established, is a skill, talent, an ambition, and for

most professional fighters, a love. Professional boxing, like virtually any

physical recreation, is performed so that there are health risks, yet it is the

athletes right to decide their personal levels of danger. Indeed, boxing

discloses America?s disposition towards tradition.

During the United States? brief history, Americans have consistently

managed to acquire cultural, social, political, and intellectual institutions

from England, leaving no surprise to why the modern controversial sport of

boxing, or prizefighting, traveled over sea to America. This high-demanding

sporting event definitely must be one of the ultimate exceptions of our time.

The 1820s and 1830s were marked by increased urbanization and

industrialization, which stimulated a need for new and accessible diversions.

The mood of society at large was captured in Beyond the Ring with this

classic line, ?Men, women, and children who cannot live on gravity alone, need

something to satisfy their lighter moods and hours?(4). Leisure?s and, more

importantly, boxing?s opponents lost further ground as the giant cities

attracted more and more immigrants who were unfamiliar to limitations upon

amusements and games.

As Jeffrey Sammons so concisely explains, ?It is because of, rather

than despite, its contradictions that boxing has survived?(236). While a

number of health and medical advocates have attempted to reform and/or

abolish the sport since the early nineteen eighties because of brutality and

death, these adversaries have also served as proof of manhood. The

problem has slowly evolved from a national to an international conflict. An

increased death and brain damage rate triggered this worthless action

towards the removal of professional boxing. This was just temporary.

Slight changes within league rules, such as weight class regulations and

softening of boxing gloves, soon decreased the already low health-damaging

rates back to legal standards. Anybody who believes that there should be a

complete elimination of the sport really needs to put things in perspective.

In terms of numbers, I am almost one-hundred percent certain that

the number of deaths caused in other sports is much higher. Consider the

high-intensity and extremely tragic catastrophes seen in motor sports alone.

Not to mention air sports, mountain and rock climbing, and the handful of

ball games. The intervention of our own personal risk and danger is our own

liberty. On the other hand, I certainly agree we have to prevent people

from taking risks that they are ignorant about. There are numerous other

areas where consenting adults take risks and harm each other, such as

smoking or drinking alcohol. Where are the people arguing for their

criminalization? In much similarity to other illegal industries such as

hardcore pornography and the never ending war on drug dealing and drug

use, a ban on boxing would force it to go underground, making it more

dangerous, much like the new hit blockbuster movie, Fight Club, a classic

display of our true human instincts. ?Boxing is not so much a sport, not

merely a game as it is, like drama itself, a way of life?(Oates & Halpern,

259).

Besides, the demand for professional boxing in the Unites States is

up there with the other sport elites. The boxing industry is one of the

highest revenue making sports that exists today. What would a ban do to

the tourist industry for urban cities like Las Vegas or Atlantic City?

Some of the greatest athletes this planet has seen in the twentieth

century have come from the sport of boxing. Let?s just think of Muhammad

Ali, George Foreman, Joe Frazier and Sugar Ray Robinson. There can be

little doubt that the desire for monetary gain, fame, and enhanced social

status have motivated many a young man to enter the prizefightnig ring. It

has been a sterotype that all prizefighters have low socioeconomic

backround and little education, or unuseful work skills. I believe that if I

had the stereotypical low social status and the talent, skill, and ambition of a

prizefighter, of course I would walk through the door that is shedding a dim

yet only light of possible success. Despite the feasibility of fame and

wealth, middle and upper class men ?don?t mind professional baseball and

football, but to be labeled a ?prizefighter? is something they can?t quite

swallow?(237).

In opposition to my current beliefs, Elliot J. Gorn, the author of The

Manly Art, believes that ?boxers are victims of racial and class

discrimination, that the ring encourages voilence, and that pugilism appeals

to all that is barbarous in man?(11).

In Conclusion, a ban on boxing is not only illogical but impossible! In my mind,

if you want to minimize the number of actual life-long injuries related to

sports, you would be better off coming up with elaborated rules for motor

sports or rock climbing. Who wants to terminate a sport that has been

entertaining the world for centuries? How could medical ethics eliminate a

sport which participates in the Olympics? Yes, boxing may be risky but so is

life.