What is boxing?

Boxing is a sport where two people that have the similar weight fight each other using their fists in a series of rounds. The rounds are about 1 - 3 minutes intervals. The way that a fighter can get points is if they can have a solid clean blow to the legal area on the other fighter. The legal area is the body but has to be above the waistline. The winner is the fighter with the most point at the end of the fight, and is decaled the winner. Also a fighter may win the fight by knocking out the other fighter or if the other fighter is knocked down they will have the count of ten from the referee if they don’t get up the fighter standing wins. If the fight is injured and cannot finish the fight this is a TKO (a Technical Knockout), this is also shown as KO (Knockout) this will be put on the fighters record.

 

 

 

History

  • The earliest evidence of boxing is in North Africa during 4000 B.C and also in the Mediterranean in 1500 BC.
  • Thesus was a Greek ruler around 900 B.C; men who was sitting down in front of each other and beat each other until one was killed entertained the ruler.
  • Boxing was first accepted as an Olympic Sport by the ancient Greek called Boxing plgme/ pygmachia in 688 B.C.
  • Ancient Rome: Fighters were men who were criminals or slaves, and they hoped to become the champion, so they could win their freedom. This style of fighting become very popular but it was banner in 500 AD.
  • Boxing disappeared from the face of the earth when the Roman Empire fell, but the sport later resurfaced in England during the early 18 th Century, but it was bare-knuckle prize fighting. There was a documentary recorded on bare-knuckle fighting in England around 1681 in ‘London Protestant Mercury.’ The champion of this fight was James Figg in 1719.
  • This type of fighting was a very crude sport because there were no written rules on weight divisions, round limits, no referee and no protective equipment.
  • London Prize Ring Rules were the first boxing rules introduced by the heavyweight champion Jack Broughton in 1743.These rules protected the fighter.
  • In 1833 the London Prize Ring Rules were expanded in more detail, this later revised in 1853.
  • 14 years later Marquess of Queensberry drafted more rules by John Chambers for the Olympic Championship; these were for the lightweight, middleweight and heavyweight.

Olympic Boxing

  • Olympic or Amateur boxing is found in the Olympic games and the Commonwealth games.
  • The Olympic boxing prize points scoring rather than the physical damage or knockouts. These fight are two minutes long.
  • The commonwealth games there are three rounds of two minutes in the national ABA (Amateur Boxing Association).
  • Both of these have 1-minute interval between each round.
  • In these fights they wear protection headgear and gloves with a white strip that goes across the knuckle. A punch is only considered a scoring punch if the fighter punches with the white part of the glove.
  • The referee monitors the fight to ensure there is no fail play. The referee can stop a fight if he see fit, because if a player is injured or one fighter is domination the other.
  • There are 4 classes these are Featherweight (9 stone), Lightweight (10 stone), Middleweight (11 stone, 4 pounds) and the heavyweight (no limit).
  • The first worlds Amateur Boxing championship were staged in 1974.

 

 

Professional Boxing

  • Professional rounds are for longer than the Olympic rounds, this range from 4 to 12 rounds. There is no headgear permitted, and boxing are generally allowed to take much more punishment before the fight is stopped.
  • Referee may stop the fight if they believe that fighters cannot defend themselves due to an injury.
  • A fighter is awarded a technical Knockout win, which appear on the boxers record as a knockout win or loss. Also awarded a TKO if the fighter opens up a cut with 1 punch.
  • If a doctor is brought in to see a fighter and he declares that the fighter is not fit to fight, then a TKO is awarded.

Women boxing

  • Women’s boxing first appeared in the Olympic games at a demonstration rounds in 1904. For most of the 20 th Century women boxing was banned in most nations.
  • The British Amateur Boxing Association was the fist boxing competition for women boxing in 1977, due to this women boxing had to have new rules made or changed at the end of the 20 th Century.
  • Although women fought professionally in many countries. In the United Kingdom the BBBC (The British Boxing Board of Control) refused to give females licence to fight until 1998.
  • The first fight was between Jane Couch and Simona Lukic, the fight took place in London in November 1998 at Streatham.
  • The first European cup for women in 1999 and the first world championship for women in 2001.The women boxing will become and exhibition sport at the 2008 Olympics, but it will not become an official Olympics sport until the 2012, which England is holding.

An images of a punch (training glove and jab pads)

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