Boxing
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.
