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 making sack fulls of money out of these young hopefuls and they didn’t even know about it. The documentary revealed a lot about boxing to me, it showed me that out of all the money generated by a fight, the actual boxers themselves, not the trainers or officials get a very small percentage, even more surprising a lot of amateurs box for free. Unless you’re a huge celebrity because of the titles you’ve won etc (Muhammad Ali, George Foreman) or because boxing has exploited you so much that you’re not capable of what the press think you are capable of, recent examples include Lennox Lewis and Prince Naseem Hammed. Most budding young boxers (like all other sports) will not amount to much but almost everyone in the world of boxing will do everything in their power and more to exploit them as much as possible to squeeze every last penny out of the boxer and when he’s done and dusted he is simply swept under the carpet, injuries or not. When a boxer can box no more the once caring land of the boxers who’d do anything help while they box suddenly don’t care anymore, boxing is not for life only when you can box.
Most young children have no idea what they are getting themselves into when they have dreams of becoming the undisputed champion of the world, they seem to forget that they compete in a very dangerous/violent sport. We’ve all heard the compulsory medical checks which take place and the medical officers at ringside for each contest, I won’t deny that these things happen but these kind of checks only happen at major boxing events, do you think that these kind of checks occur when a amateur fight takes place in your local gymnasium like the fights going on in Denbigh? They almost certainly don’t at least not to that extent and in the world of amateur boxing the fights can easily be as dangerous and/or violent as the professional fights going on. This is quite distressing, as the young amateur boxers are probably more at risk really, as they will not receive as specialist help as the professional boxers would.
We’ve all read the fact sheet produced by “The British Boxing Board of Control” which suggests that boxing teaches the need for law and offers many young people the chance of avoiding a life of delinquency and instead growing into responsible citizens. Well here are a few points I’d like to make to “The British Boxing Board of Control”, how can boxing teach the need for law and order by encouraging two young men to beat each other to within an inch of their lives? Doesn’t law and order try to and prevent this sort of thing? Excuse me, responsible, again how can continually hitting a man and make money out of it at the same time make someone responsible?
Made you’re mind up as to whether you think its reasonable to suggest boxing should be banned? Don’t, well not until you’ve read the rest of this essay. Here are in my eyes the advantages of boxing.
Boxing is a sport, no matter which way you look at it, it has existed (in one form or another) for many, many years (although not stretching back centuries) and most sports require tactics and skill including boxing. Watch any boxing match and you will see straight away that you cannot win by strength alone, a boxer needs to be sly and needs to use cunning (attributes for both genders of the fox respectively) in order to outwit the opponent. You have to be very quick to decide whether you should block, whether you should lunge an attack, whether you should duck or weave to the left or the right, just like a sport such as football, you have to be very skilful which requires months and months of training. To succeed in boxing you must be intelligent to a certain extent in boxing otherwise you’ll never be successful and this proves that boxing is not just mindless, men hitting each other at all.
Boxing does encourage the learning of self-discipline and respect through training and generally looking after yourself and does offer young men and some children the chance to do something with their life and to actually achieve something. For some people the only quality they have that shines brightly is boxing and if they are good enough to make a career out of it, they will receive a healthy income and maybe a bit of fame to boot. These people would have no future without boxing, they are the people most of us look down on and are bound to criticise. Without boxing a lot of people would have turned to crime or simply sat at home waiting for the giro to arrive. Would it be morally right to take away something a lot of people enjoy and depend on, Boxing may or may not be to you’re taste but to a lot of people it’s a way of life, what would you do if the government banned something you enjoyed watching and/or taking part in? Of course no one is forced to box or to pay to watch boxing, so if boxing is not to you’re taste then all you have to do is simply not take part in it and/or not watch it, simple as that, there is no pressure at all. And no, before you say it, boxing audiences are not motivated by bloodlust, they are on the whole knowledgeable and compassionate, visit any boxing match and see for yourself
Boxing has been regularly criticised by the press and the public in general for being a dangerous violent sport, this is not really the case at all. Boxing is safer than most other physical-contact sports because it is very highly regulated, facts both medical and statistical support this and “The British Boxing Board of Control” has taken many steps to counteract further risk to the fighters’ health. These steps include two medical officers at the ringside for every contest and compulsory brain scans for every boxer on a regular basis. So boxing has, as many safe guards in place as necessary.
Whether you like it or not boxing is a very popular sport and will never completely go away even if a ban was put in place, the government wouldn’t have the resources and it would go underground where it would be uncontrolled and absolute chaos with illegal gambling and absolutely horrific fights. So it is much better to keep it where it can be highly regulated and controlled.
After reading/listening/watching reports on boxing spread about on all the forms of the media and considering the plusses and minuses of the sport I have come to the conclusion that boxing should be a bit more tightly regulated but a total ban is not called for. I think that no one under the age of sixteen should legally be allowed to compete in a fight where there are spectators (paying to watch or not) and that there should be more medical health checks and measures in amateur boxing. I also think more should be more measures to protect the younger boxers from being exploited and “used” and also before being offered a career in boxing every potential should be given a list of alternative careers from the council that he maybe interested in. Also I believe no girl under the age of eighteen should be allowed to legally box. But otherwise I believe that these people are bowing at there own free will and that its up to them whether they care that much for their health or not, its up to them and none of our business. I know it’s impossible to totally ban boxing so there’s no point in suggesting it and I wouldn’t want it banned anyway because its very popular and means a lot to a huge amount of people, I know I wouldn’t like it at all if the Government banned football. I believe everyone has the right to do whatever they want at their own free will as long as they know what they are getting into, all I want to see are a few more measures introduced and I’ll be happy.
Sion Brooks 10N