"The hardest thing about prize fighting is picking up your teeth with a boxing glove on."... (Is boxing worth the risk?)

Member Name: ILoveJackDaniels

Product:	Is boxing worth the risk?
Date:	21/07/01 (139 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Athletic Competition, Skill, Strength

Disadvantages: Health Risks

... as Kin Hubbard once wrote, sums up the entire arguement behind the movement to ban boxing - whether or not grown men should be allowed to pound each other's bodies to pulp for money and fame.

The boxing debate has raged solidly for years, and this is hardly surprising. Since the dawn of time, men in power have sought to protect those they perceive as weaker than themselves from harm that might otherwise be avoided.

The biggest argument put forward by opponents of boxing is medical evidence that boxing damages the participants. Paul Ingle, mentioned in the description of this category, underwent a massive surgical procedure to remove a blood clot from his brain that might easily have killed him.

What's that I hear you say? Every sport carries with it a risk of injury and it's all part of the game? I completely agree. Except where boxing is concerned. Every sport carries with it a risk of injury, but there is no single other sport where the sole aim of the competitors is to cause other people harm.

These are perfectly valid reasons to ban boxing, in my opinion, except for one simple fact that is so often overlooked in this all-new one-party state. If two men want to pound each other's head repeatedly as hard as possible, and know the risks involved, then why shouldn't they? What's wrong with that - they're not hurting anyone else, and they box at their own risk.

Debates like this one are everyday in Britain (the Cannabis debate is a fine example), and they all boil down to this. Every government has a duty to protect its citizens from harm, whether self inflicted or not. But at what point does the government have a duty to step back and admit that, frankly, they are interfering in something that is between consenting adults and is none of their business.

If everything that was bad for us was banned, life would be no fun. We would be banned from drinking and smoking, and although ther
e are people who do not partake of either of these habits, most of those people would agree that if someone wants to rot their livers or burn their lungs, that is their God-given right and they should be allowed to do it, as long as they put everyone else at as littrle risk as possible.

Boxing, in my opinion, falls basically into this category. The people being put at risk are doing it of their own free will. Nobody is forcing them to fight, and they know the risks involved. So who in their right minds can say that anyone has a right to stop them?

I'll leave you with the 'wise' words of John McGovern, which brings a smile to my face at the beginning of any match I watch these days, and should remind us all not to take it all so seriously. The boxers know what they are risking, so sit back and enjoy the fight!

"I love boxing. Where else do two grown men prance around in satin underwear, fighting over a belt? The one who wins gets a purse. They do it in gloves. It's the accessory connection I love."

Summary: