Is boxing a violent blood thirsty sport or is it the heinous sport of gentlemen?

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Is boxing a violent bloodthirsty sport or is it the heinous sport of gentlemen?

  Boxing, to some, the great sport where young people on the fringes of society at there own free will compete in a safe, tightly controlled environment which promotes qualities such as self-discipline and respect.  To others boxing is a violent sport which immorally exploits the lowest and youngest members of society to the full in a violent and dangerous environment while promoting qualities such as self-discipline and respect.

  There is no doubt boxing has and in my opinion always will be a controversial sport, we all remember the famous “Tyson bites off part of his opponents ear” and “Family weeps after Oliver Spencer leaves the ring for the last time” headlines.  But is boxing really as bad or good as some members of the media and society suggest?  Do the disadvantages of boxing far outweigh the advantages enough to warrant a banning of the sport?  Or is boxing when you look at the facts morally and beneficially good for all of us?   In this essay I’ll be trying to answer these questions, detailing the advantages and disadvantages of the sport and throughout give my thoughts and decide whether I agree or not with a particular suggestion. To conclude, taking all aspects of boxing into account I will give my overall opinion on boxing.

Instead of taking the usual route of stating the advantages of boxing first, I will firstly explain the disadvantages instead.  In boxing there is always the risk of brain damage which leaves the boxer mentally disabled and/or physically disabled such as Parkinson’s disease one such boxer who contracted this was one time “King of fighters”, Muhammad Ali.  This one time champion has descended from the highest title available to the lowest of the low, he suffers from a deficiency which means his whole body shakes and makes shuffling movements unpredictably preventing him from performing simple tasks such as drinking from a mug or eating food without assistance. The reason this happens is because when someone receives many a blow to the head the brain inside which is floating bounces back and fourth inside the head like a ping pong ball.  Because the inside of the head is hard bone (not soft) the brain receives damage, the brain then bounces and hits the other side of the head, this can eventually result in the boxer receiving either a mental disability or a physical one or both because of internal bleeding and blood clots.   In a knockout the boxer loses a few nerve cells.  The boxer could then pay the ultimate penalty and go on to die as a result of his injuries, remember all this could happen in just one fight.  Other mental disabilities which maybe caused as a result of boxing include suffering from amnesia, feeling continually confused, no memory and no conversation, a boxer who has these kinds of disabilities after they have retired are often called “punch drunk”.  Another example of a great boxer falling to the very low of society is Randolph Turpin.  Once Champion of the world, by the time he retired he was wheel chair bound and half deaf, a very sad figure compared to what he used to be, he eventually committed suicide as he could not take the strains of life as he was.

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  Boxing clubs take a young person usually from a working class society seeking fame and financial security and exploits them to the full, they take advantage of these young men wanting to be someone, films which have glamorised boxing such as “Rocky” have not helped.  Watching a recent boxing documentary recently, I saw children as young as eight training in a gym to potentially be world boxing champion.  The trainers if that’s what the young children see them as because they didn’t seem to know much about boxing at all which just goes to show that these “trainers” were ...

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