Not sure if its been said, but I think they should just go back to bare knuckle. Far less deaths and brain damage issues that way.
Yeah, I mean, you break the hands, you're not going to be punching to the head for the same amount of time, I suppose. Can you share where you drew that conclusion from? I would've thought the chance for injury would've increased.
Actually apparently there were next to no deaths during the bare knuckle days. The risk of breaking your hand meant headshots were rare and you spent most of your time going for the body. The introduction of gloves led to the few deaths a year figure we have now
Funny, this sat around for 3 months before anyone replied! As has been pointed out, boxing is safer in terms of fatalities than many other sports. College football producing twice as many deaths, and horse racing many times more. The main argument the BMA raises is the inevitability of brain injury caused by repeated blows to the head, but even this can be reduced. Rules, medical checks and so forth. Re. bare-knuckle deaths: there were some, but I believe one of the links in my OP mentioned the overall rate was not higher than it is now. Additionally, some of those deaths were caused by falling on hard surfaces, exposed rope supports, or rocks (they didn't always have a ring!) Although the risks should be made clear to all participants, it's up to them to box or not. Moreover a ban on boxing would be a slippery slope for other martial arts.
Whilst I'm not in favour of banning boxing, I'd be more interested in the statistics for chronic brain injury and long term health prospects than those of fatalities. For most people who take part in any sport with the prospect of head contact the chances of death are probably relatively low, but the chances of cumulative brain damage, from years of training, causing problems in later life are more of an issue.
As Southpaw pointed out above, historically there were very few deaths in bare knuckle boxing. Apparently there are only 2 recorded deaths from bare knuckle fights. The simple reasons (as was also pointed out) was that the jaw is solid, the jaw bone is more than capable of breaking the bones of the hand. Hence the reason that you tend to favour more body shots than head shots, therefore less brain damage and your much less likely to die.
Umm I am not sure that your comment is fair. In boxing you are allowed to hit lots of areas although for obvious reasons the head is a fair target. Consider this. Soccer players practice repeatedly doing headers to be able to accurately knock the ball to another player or into the goal. Unlike boxing you cannot do this at half pace or it will be inaccurate. So some footie players take repeated hard shots to the head far more than most boxers will. There is no way of predicting which hit will cause a concussion in either case and the second hit if the first occurs is more likely to cause damage. Bet there are lots of football players that get minor concussions from training and risk damage as much as a boxer does. It is not as simple as you make it out Robert and that is one of the reasons why people aren't so easily swayed to ban boxing. Besides, if 2 people want to do something that puts their health at risk, why should the state step in unless it is obvious that a serious injury will happen to anyone carrying out the activity. FWIW LFD
boxing, muay thai... any sport with repeated head trauma have the potential for death and for long term, debilitating injury that results in a massively compromised quality of life. It's not like it's a big secret. It's something that's been known about for you. The minutae can be argued back and forth ad infinitum. I don't support the ban... myself and others who go into it know the risk involved or soon learn about it. No one has forced us to box. I certainly don't need the state stepping in and banning things.
You know, I've done this very thing and the way I was trained to do it was with the crown of the head. Also, you're directing force into an object that is designed to flex and bounce and that's what it does. Now, a professionally trained fighter's fist is going to be much less bouncy and flexible than a soccer ball and you're definitely not going to want to try slam the crown of your head into it. Get that wrong and it's going to be scrambled eggs x 2. With the soccer ball, once I'd learned the proper alignment and timing associated with it, it didn't phase me one bit. Of course, that may explain some other things...
coronavirus nailed it in her first post... Freedom of choice. Banning professional boxing is frankly a pointless and retarded exercise in futility. You'd may as well outlaw motorcycles, cars, smoking, sunbathing, unprotected sex, all contact sports, alcohol, cycling etc... dumb, dumb, dumb.
Haha and mine! I don't smoke either, (not anymore) but the point is (and even more so now that the almost ubiquitous ban is in place for public smoking) that what people do to their own body is their own choice. Boxing is pretty stupid as well but not as stupid as trying to stop people doing it :dunno:
I think one of the main differences between banning boxing and banning smoking is that smoking has the potential to adversely impact nonsmokers, whereas boxing takes place between consenting adults. Although taking that argument to the extreme could lead to an argument for banning cars and other things that affect 'innocent bystanders' to the activity.
this is mitigated against somewhat now by the smoking ban, however yes there is a difference - but... Exactly.
I don't think it should be banned, as long as CONSENTING ADULTS train and fight. In the end we all know better what we want for our lives. I would surely hate it to have someone tell me I shouldn't train in my style of choice because it would be detrimental to my knees for instance. I know this well and so do my legs On the other hand I would never personally put myself in danger of getting pound in the head, since my work requires that little thing between my ears to function the best it can
Since everyone seems to agree with the consenting adults thing what do you think about youth boxing? I'm not sure how popular it is with kids over kickboxing or karate anyway but would you want to see it banned for people until they reached a certain age? Adult seems too late for an age ban, I trust people to be aware of the risks and be able to train sensibly well before they hit 18.
I find it slightly amusing. We martial artists take martial arts full well knowing the risks. That's like banning the Olympics. One could argue that participating in such events could lead to injury but the athletes still participate because they are aware of the danger. They willing particpate. To ban boxing for fear of injury is a little funny. Now obviously we take safety measure to help reduce risk of injury but its still going to happen. That's like smoking and thinking that your health wont be impacted. Just my two cents.
