“It is the only sport in which the intention is to inflict serious injury on your opponent and he feels that there should be a total ban on boxing”(BBC News Page).
Dr Bill O’Neill is the British Medical Association’s Spokesman. He says that there is no point in trying to improve safety measures in the boxing ring because as long as the head is a valid target in the sport then these injuries are going to continue to happen. (BBC News interview). Due to all the injuries that have taken place in the world of boxing, the BMA (British Medical Association) have been trying to ban all types of boxing since 1985. So far, there has been a number of safety measures introduced to the world of boxing, but none have proven, in the past 10 to 20 years, to help significantly against brain damage and other serious effects such as eye and ear injuries e.g. Mike Tyson biting Evander Holyfield’s earlobe. These attacks continue to occur because, although safety measures such as Head Gear must be worn at all times during an Amateur Fight, guidelines like these are not imposed in any of the Professional Fights.
The Journal of Medical Ethics, which is published by the BMA, had an article in March by Dr. Nigel Warburton. He said that the BMA’s policy against Boxing is “inconsistent, paternalistic and too weak to justify a change to Criminal law”. He also said that between 1986 and 1992, boxing accounted for three deaths in England and Wales compared with 77 deaths from motor sports, 69 from air sports, 54 from mountaineering, 40 from ball games and 28 from horse riding.
This would suggest that boxing is a much safer sport than many others but Dr. Warburton fails to recognise brain damage as an almost lethal factor and result of boxing.
Boxing isn’t all bad; it brings excitement, pleasure and enjoyment to millions upon millions of people every week of the year, so why do people continue to say that it is a very dangerous sport when clearly much less deaths are caused by boxing.
I think that children under the age of sixteen should not be allowed to watch it because they could go out to their friends house and think there Mike Tyson and start punching their best friend because they saw that certain individual do it just the night before.
This argument could be argued from all different angles and ways. to say boxing is bad influence on children is a very acceptable argument and to say boxing brings pleasure to millions of people is very acceptable aswell, but, in my view there is nothing wrong with boxing because not too many serious injuries are caused by boxing and those who they do happen to maybe shouldn’t have been in a boxing ring in the first place or it was just the luck of the draw that it happened to them. I say this because I am a fan of boxing but I think I have backed up my views to inform the reader that I am writing this essay in a neutral state.
