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2004 Armed Forces Amateur Boxing Championships, held in 2003. The headgear and white area gloves seen here are not used in professional boxing fights
2004 Armed Forces Amateur Boxing Championships, held in 2003. The headgear and white area gloves seen here are not used in professional boxing fights

Boxing is a combat sport.

Fighting with the fists for sport and spectacle is probably as old as sport itself. Boxing contests are found throughout antiquity. Greek boxers would wear boxing gloves (not padded) and wrappings on their arms below the elbows, but were otherwise naked when competing. The word "boxing" first came into use in England in the 18th century to distinguish between fighting to settle disputes, and fighting under agreed rules for sport. It is now used to describe a sport in which two contestants (boxers) wearing padded gloves face each other in a "ring" and fight an agreed number of "rounds" under recognized rules. Although men have always been the most numerous participants, there are some references to fights between women during the 18th century, and women's boxing was organized again at the end of the 20th century.

Throughout the latter part of the 19th century and the whole of the 20th century, amateur and professional boxing operated in parallel. In the final quarter of the 20th century, however, amateur boxing lost much of its popular support. Traditional concerns about bruises and black eyes gave way to more serious concerns about long-term eye and brain damage, and medical checks on boxers, and medical supervision of their fights, became an increasingly important feature of both amateur and professional boxing.

Origins

18th- and early 19th-century pugilism (bare-knuckle fighting) was an important precursor of boxing in Britain. Boxing, however, probably grew most specifically out of the demonstrations held at the Fives Court and the Tennis Court in London in the early 19th century. These promotions had several features that anticipated the future sport of boxing. The boxers wore "mufflers" (padded gloves), and "time" was called after a set period, and the lengh of the fight was predetermined. Wrestling throws were also barred. None of these features were present in bare-knuckle pugilism.

"Boxing" as distinct from any other form of fist fighting can be dated from 1867, when John Chambers drafted new rules. There were twelve rules in all, and they specified that fights should be "a fair stand-up boxing match" in a 24-foot ring. Rounds were to be of three minutes duration with one minute between rounds. Ten seconds were allowed for a man to get up if he had gone down during a round. New gloves of "fair-size" were to be worn and "wrestling or hugging" was specifically forbidden. These rules were published under the patronage of the Marquess of Queensberry, whose name has always been associated with them. The first fighter to win a world title under these rules was "Gentleman Jim" Corbett, who defeated John L. Sullivan in 1892 at the Pelican Athletic Club in New Orleans.

The success of boxers has always been associated with their size. In the early years of pugilism, however, there was only one "Champion", who always tended to be one of the heaviest. The term "light weight" was in use from the early 19th century and fights were sometimes arranged between the lighter men, but there was no specific Championship for them. The terms lightweight, welterweight, middleweight and heavyweight became common during the late 19th century, but there was no universally recognized definitions of weight class. Throughout the 20th century, new weight classes were added, extending the range down to strawweight and up to super-heavyweight but with varying agreement over their definitions.

In the early days of pugilism, all fighters were "professional" in the sense that few would fight for "love" rather than money. No distinct "amateur" sport existed until 1867, when amateur championships under Marquess of Queensberry Rules were held at Lillie Bridge in London for Lightweights, Middleweights and Heavyweights. By this date, the old professional bare-knuckle "Prize Ring" was in terminal decline. It had always been against the law, but in the early part of the century it survived because it had widespread popular support and because there were many influential men who supported it. By 1867, however, the results of fights were increasingly suspect, and sometimes boxers even failed to turn up for fights. Less money came into the sport and bare-knuckle pugilism slowly died out.

Conversely, the amateur side of the sport flourished, not only in schools, universities and in the armed forces, but also in the working-class areas of the expanding urban centers.

With the gradual acceptance of Marquess of Queensberry Rules, two distinct branches of boxing emerged, professional and amateur, and each produced its own local, national and international governing bodies and its own variation of the rules.

Amateur boxing

In amateur boxing (the version of the sport found at the Olympic Games and Commonwealth Games) the primary emphasis is on landing scoring punches rather than concern with doing actual physical damage to one's opponent (though it still occurs). Competitors wear protective headgear, and box for three rounds of three-minutes each. Each punch that lands on the head or torso is awarded a point. A referee monitors the fight to ensure that competitors use only legal blows (a belt worn over the torso represents the lower limit of punches - any boxer repeatedly landing 'low blows' is disqualified). Referees also ensure that the boxers don't use holding tactics to prevent the opponent from swinging (if this occurs, the referee separates the opponents and orders them to continue boxing. Repeated holding can result in a boxer being penalised or, ultimately, disqualified).

If a competitor is punched sufficiently hard to have trouble continuing the fight, and the opponent inflicted this condition with only legal blows, the match is over and the competitor still standing is declared the winner by knockout. In amateur boxing, referees will readily step in and award knockouts even if the competitor is only relatively lightly injured.

The Queensberry Amateur Championships continued from 1867 to 1885, and so, unlike their professional counterparts, amateur boxers did not deviate from using gloves once the Queensberry Rules had been published. In Britain, the Amateur Boxing Association (A.B.A.) was formed in 1880 when twelve clubs affiliated. It held its first championships the following year. Four weight classes were contested, Featherweight (9 stone), Lightweight (10 stone), Middleweight (11 stone, 4 pounds) and Heavyweight (no limit). By 1902, American boxers were contesting the titles in the A.B.A. Championships, which, therefore, took on an international complexion. By 1924, the A.B.A. had 105 clubs in affiliation.

Boxing first appeared at the Olympic Games in 1904 and, apart from the Games of 1912, has always been part of them. Internationally, amateur boxing spread steadily throughout the first half of the 20th century, but when the first international body, the Federation Internationale de Boxe Amateur (International Amateur Boxing Federation) was formed in Paris in 1920, there were only five member nations. In 1946, however, when the International Amateur Boxing Association (A.I.B.A.) was formed in London, twenty-four nations from five continents were represented, and the A.I.B.A. has continued to be the official world federation of amateur boxing ever since. The first World Amateur Boxing Championships were staged in 1974.

In the late 19th and early 20th century, amateur boxing was encouraged in schools, universities and in the armed forces, but the champions, in the main, came from among the urban poor.

Women's boxing first appeared in the Olympic Games as a demonstration bout in 1904. For most of the 20th century, however, it was banned in most nations. Its revival was pioneered by the Swedish Amateur Boxing Association, which sanctioned events for women in 1988. The British Amateur Boxing Association sanctioned its first boxing competition for women in 1997. The first event was to be between two thirteen year old, but one of the boxers withdrew because of hostile media attention. Four weeks later, an event was held between two sixteen year olds.

The A.I.B.A. accepted new rules for Women's Boxing at the end of the 20th century and approved the first European Cup for Women in 1999 and the first World Championship for women in 2001. Women's boxing will be an exhibition sport at the 2008 Olympics, and it will become an official Olympic sport at the 2012 Olympics.

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