PopTart wrote:
I am a big a boxing fan but Kev is unfortunately right.
There are more fatalities I'm sure in motor sports and of course people have died playing rugby, but in every other sport it is an accident and was never part of the game.
Boxing requires you to hit the other person to hurt them. You can say it is an art and boxers work the body too, which of course they do, but the idea of working the body is to tire the guy so his arms drop and you can hit him in the head.
I would never want it stopped, and I'm looking forward to the upcoming heavy weight fights, but if anyone said it had to be banned for safety reasons I'd find it hard to argue.
But at the end of the day, there are lots of safety protocols in place and it's a free world.
Because of the recent deaths that brings all the attention on the game again, we all know it will never be banned ,not that you're saying that.
I think the game will evolve again much like it did when we went from 15 rounds to 12, that was done for fighter safety - anyone that's ever watched the thriller in Manilla would agree that 15 round fight in that heat went beyond crazy, but yet made for one of the greatest fights of all time.
Imo they'll probably move more to a MMA style of referring and rules, where you don't get to get KO'd 3 times in a fight and then given the chance to recover after each time you're on the floor. I think a first step is refs calling fights for fighters own safety when it's obvious they've been knocked unconscious, no matter how quickly they came around after. Maybe technology will take a greater part as time goes on and we can more accurately assess the amount of punches a fighter has taken to the head and the power each punch is, who knows.
Also yeah it maybe an accident in other sports like motor bike racing but for perspective the Isle of Man TT has taken 275 lives in its history, that just one weekend a year. the track is known as a a widow maker.
Didn't think this thread would end up with the differences in opinion and going this deep when it started