A Detailed History Of Boxing: One Of The Most Controversial Sport

Boxing is a sport in which you wear heavy leather gloves and punch or fight with your fists. A boxing ring measures 12 sq.ft. to 20 sq.ft. Some of its famous practitioners are Mike Tyson (USA), Lennox Lewis (UK), Muhammad Ali (USA), Somluck Kamsing (Thailand), Audley Harrison (Britain), Oleg Mascaew (Uzbekistan), Mike Weaver (USA), Michael Mutua (Kenya), Manoj Pingle (India), Laurent Boudouani (France) Ariel Hernandez (Cuba) Wijan Ponlid (Thailand).

Common Terms
Some of the common terms associated with boxing are: Upper cut, kidney punch, Babbitt punch, knock down, hitting below the belt auxiliary point system, defense, down, hook, Jab, lying on, seconds out, slam, upper cut, win by knockout, and weight in. Boxing has been an Olympic sport since 688 BC. This sport is supposed to have originated in ancient Greece and Great Britain.

Olympics competition
The boxing competition involves eleven weight divisions organized on a knock-out basis. They are Light flyweight (48Kgs), Flyweight (Under 51 Kgs), bantamweight (under 54 kgs), featherweight (Under 57 kgs), Light weight (under 60 kgs), Light welter weight (under 63.5 kgs), Welterweight (Under 67 kgs), Light middle weight (Under 71 kgs), Middleweight (under 75 kgs), Light heavy weight (under 81 kgs), Heavy weight (81 kgs+). Each contest is boxed over three 3-minute rounds. The result depends on either a knock-out, the referee stopping the contest for the safety of the loser, or on a point’s decision.

History of Boxing
Boxing possibly must be as old as our civilization. The usage of fists comes naturally to people. The tendency to fight is deeply embedded in human blood. Even if all weapons are seized human being will continue to fight using their fists. Boxing could have been the earliest means of fighting. Later on with the invention of sticks, swords, spheres and guns that other forms of sports emerged and gained popularity.
Boxing falls under the category of combat sport; here two contestants use their fists to fight by following certain rule-set of the game. Boxing is practiced all over the world in numerous ways.
Earlier no set of rules were followed in boxing. There was neither a referee, nor round limits nor weight divisions. In ancient times this sport exercised the most inhuman, brutal and crudest form of entertainment. The match ended only after one of the fighters lost consciousness. Instead of the hard gloves used in modern times ancient Greek fighters wrapped their wrist, fist and breast with strips of stiff leather to protect themselves against injuries that were caused during the tussle. Boxing rules were first introduced in 1743 by jack Broughton, a heavy weight champion to safeguard the lives of the fighter. According to the rules if the opponent is knocked down and is unable to rise with 30 seconds he was declared the loser.

Modern set of rules
Rules have been gradually modified with time. The fighter spends a minute with his coach and staff in between each round. In this short span of time the coach advises and attends to the boxer. The referee controls the fight within the ring and takes all the important judgments. About three judges are normally present at the ringside to assign points. These points are based on the number of blows that are connected, evasion and knockdowns. The boxer securing highest points at the end of the clash is declared the winner. A boxer may possibly win the match through knockout.
Hitting below the belt, pushing, spitting, holding, wrestling, biting and tripping are prohibited .Similarly, head-butting, kicking, and hitting on the nape or the kidney is forbidden. Hitting with open gloves, using elbow, forearm, shoulder, wrist is also prohibited. The referee has very right to declare foul play incase the rules and regulations are violated.

Equipments
Vigorous and repetitive punching could disfigure the face and damage bones. Hand/wrist wraps, are usually worn below the boxing gloves. It supports the hand, wrist and the knuckles against common injuries. The boxing gloves are worn for the protection against fractures and scrapes and bruises. Speed bag and heavy bags are used to hone punching skills and power punching body blows respectively. Besides this, free weights, medicines balls, jump rope and rowing machines are utilized to build speed, strength and agility.

Dangerous
Though a very popular sport it is termed by some as the sport of the uncivilized world. Repetitive punching causes permanent brain damages and eventually results in death. The ultimate goal of the contestants is to hurt the opponent, inflict injuries and emerge victorious. No wonder some of the countries like Cuba, Korea, Norway, and Iceland have banned boxing.

In the game of boxing the winner is the one who has a very powerful punch and inspite of taking maximum number of punches can still continue fighting.