Boxing - The Noble Art or Legalised Thuggery

[Nearly Sane]

With the death of the boxer Mike Towell, the question of the status of boxing once again arises. The article linked to below is a reasonable attempt to look at both sides of the argument. I think the freedom argument is difficult to counter but the real challenge is surely the issue of an audience enjoying it. I say that as someone who has  been to a fair few boxing nights and who has enjoyed it, even while wondering about the morality of it.


http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/boxing/37536346

[wigginhall]

Yes, a fair article.  I would have thought that pragmatically, banning boxing would be disastrous, as it would go underground, and then you might have more deaths, as there would be unsupervised bouts all over the place.

[Nearly Sane]

Yes, a ban seems  wrong both in the outcome and as regards freedom but if nobody turned up?

[jeremyp]

If boxing were to be banned, wouldn't we then have to examine all contact sports? Also, motorsport would be in danger and mountaineering.

People like doing dangerous things (and others like to watch). You can't legislate that out of them, and if you try, they'll go ahead anyway.

[Nearly Sane]

If boxing were to be banned, wouldn't we then have to examine all contact sports? Also, motorsport would be in danger and mountaineering.

People like doing dangerous things (and others like to watch). You can't legislate that out of them, and if you try, they'll go ahead anyway.

I think the issue is neither Motorsport nor mountaineering have the objective of doing harm to another person while you cheer

[Hope]

With the death of the boxer Mike Towell, the question of the status of boxing once again arises. The article linked to below is a reasonable attempt to look at both sides of the argument. I think the freedom argument is difficult to counter but the real challenge is surely the issue of an audience enjoying it. I say that as someone who has  been to a fair few boxing nights and who has enjoyed it, even while wondering about the morality of it.


http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/boxing/37536346

I think the real problem lies with the organisation of the bout - and Towell's clear failure to inform the medics that he had been suffering from migraines for the previous 2 weeks - something that only became public after his death.  As boxing promoter Frank Warren pointed out on BBC Breakfast oin Monday (iirc) if the medics had known about this situation, they wouldn't have allowed the fight to go ahead.