Boxing in History . Combat sport, also known as English boxing or Irish boxing, and colloquially as boxing, is a contact sport in which two opponents fight using gloved fists, hitting the opponent from the waist up, within a ring in brief fighting sequences called assaults or rounds and according to a regulation.
Summary
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- 1 Boxing and broadcasting
- 2 bare fist boxing
- 1 Broughton’s rules
- 2 The rules of the London Prize Ring
- 3 The era of glove boxing
- 4 World diffusion of boxing
- 5 Professional boxing
- 6 Women’s boxing
- 7 Men’s boxing
- 8 Amateur boxing
- 9 See also
- 10 Sources
Boxing and broadcasting
Boxing (from English boxing), also sometimes called English boxing or Irish boxing, and colloquially as boxing, is a contact sport in which two opponents fight using only gloved fists, hitting the opponent from the waist up, within a ring specially designed for this purpose, in brief fighting sequences called assaults or rounds and according to a precise regulation.
Boxing has been practiced since ancient times on all continents except America . Fighting with your fists as a competition and show is one of the oldest sporting activities in the world.
Of African origin, it dates back to 6000 BC. C., in the area of modern Ethiopia , from where it spread first to the ancient Egyptian civilization, and later to Mesopotamian civilizations, where bas-reliefs of boxers dating from 5500 BC are found. C . From Egypt it passed to the Minoan civilization developed in Crete , while from Mesopotamia it expanded to India .
The Egyptian fighters used a kind of glove that covered the fist up to the elbow. The custom of wearing gloves is also found in Crete and later in Ancient Greece , where there are already references to boxing in Homer’s Iliad in the 8th century BC. C .
In 688 a. C . boxing was included in the XXIII Olympic Games of antiquity]] with the name of pygme or pygmachia (in Greek fist fight; “pyg” = fist and “mahi” = fight), where he became the first Olympic boxing champion Onomastos of Smirna. In Greece, fighters trained with sandbags called korykos and used leather straps called himantes, which covered the hands and wrists, and sometimes the forearms, although leaving the fingers free. In the IV century a. C . himantes evolved into spahiras, first and then gloves, called oxeis himantes.
Boxing was also practiced in the early days of Ancient Rome, but it was practically eliminated as an activity throughout Europe with the emergence of Christianity. Contrary to what happened in Europe, boxing had a great diffusion throughout Asia . It is estimated that at the beginning of the Christian era, muay boran or ancestral boxing appeared in Southeast Asia.
Legendary, Bodhidharma, a Hindu monk and Buddhist patriarch who lived in the 5th century , has been credited with the creation of Shaolin boxing or Chinese boxing (Shao-Lin-Chuan), due to its appearance in the Shaolin monastery, although modern Chinese historians they have seriously questioned the veracity of the legend, and have found evidence of the existence of boxing in China , before the spread of Buddhism. The definitive forms of Saholin boxing were created by Chueh-Yuan, Pai-Yu-Feng and Li-Ch´ing, probably during the Ming dynasty (1368-1644). In shao lin chuan, the practice of boxing is closely related to the control of qi or chi, an internal energy that is attributed to living beings:
Without Chi, there is no force. A boxer who yells and throws his hand fiercely has no real strength in his punch. A true boxer is not spectacular, but his fist is heavy as a mountain. This is because it possesses Chi. After long practice, the Chi can be focused on any desired point of attack. The will commands the Chi, which can be placed on any point instantly.
In the 13th century, muay thai or Thai boxing appeared in Siam, which became a professional sport in the 17th century . From its origin, Muay Thai was practiced in a square space delimited by a rope on the floor. The 17 of March of 1774 the Thai boxer Nai Khanomtom defeated ten Burmese champions, a feat for which he was awarded the title of Father of the Muay Thai.En the century XVII , coinciding with the expansion in Asia of the British Empire and France , boxing entered England , where it would receive the name of boxing or English boxing, at the same time as in Marseille, sailors influenced by Southeast Asian boxing began to shape the savate or French boxing.
In general, boxing is a contact sport in which two opponents face each other in a fight using their fists, exclusively or not, differentiating according to their rules different sports such as the aforementioned English boxing or boxing itself, French boxing or savate, Chinese boxing or Shaolin boxing, kick boxing or Japanese boxing, Muay Thai or Thai boxing, the ancient Greek boxing such as pygmachia and pankration.
The first rules governing boxing matches date back to 1743 , while the current rules were established in 1889 by the Marquis of Queensberry, who among other things introduced the use of gloves.
Traditionally it has been considered an exclusively male sporting practice, legally and culturally affected by gender biases. The recognition of women’s rights and advances in the fight against discrimination have allowed a boom in women’s boxing to be registered in recent decades.
Bare fist boxing
The word “boxing” was already used in England in the 16th century to refer to a fist fight. But the first record of a boxing match, as a sports joust, is from 1681 , while the first use of the word “boxing” to refer to the sport dates from 1711 .
In the 18th century , boxing became a popular sport in Great Britain and its colonies, thus entering America. For two centuries the fights were carried out without gloves (bare knuckles) and without a time limit, in order to organize betting shows, forming a very violent practice, in which the fighters were usually seriously injured or killed. In those early years the spectators formed a ring (ring) around the combatants, who used to be men, although there were also female and even animal fights.
In the early decades of the 18th century, people who called themselves Masters of Defense appeared in London . In 1719 , one of these masters, the British James Figg, was proclaimed champion of England and challenged any white person to beat him, in the ring of the amphitheater that he himself built at the Greyhound Inn, in Thame, Oxfordshire and then also in London . It is estimated that between 1719 and 1730 or 1734 Figg fought 270 fights, winning all but one. On Figg’s death in 1734, one of the London newspapers reported the following:
Broughton’s rules
Jack Broughton was the successor champion to Figgs. He introduced a technical and methodical approach to the practice of the sport, optimizing strokes and movements. In 1741 he defeated George Stevenson in a 35-minute fight, as a result of which Stevenson died a few days later. Initially Broughton gave up boxing, but later became convinced that it required rules designed to prevent the boxers from suffering irreversible damage.
Thus, on August 16, 1743, Jack Broughton unveiled in his Tottenham Court Road amphitheater, the first rules of modern boxing, which would be known by name and which would earn him recognition as the father of English boxing.
The Broughton Rules consisted of seven rules that were mandatory for boxers who agreed to box in his amphitheater. The rules established the duty to retreat to his own side of the ring in the event of an opponent’s fall; the half-minute count after a fall to place himself in the center of the ring and restart the fight or be considered a beaten man; that only fighters and their seconds could get into the ring; the prohibition of private arrangements between the fighters on the distribution of money; the election of umpires to resolve disputes between boxers; the prohibition of hitting the opponent when he is down, and the admission of the keys only above the waist.
Broughton also created the elevated boxing rings and the use of gloves in training and demonstrations to cushion the blows. The Broughton Rules would remain in effect, with some modifications, until 1838 , when they were superseded by the London Prize Ring Rules.
In this period boxing was introduced in America. The first known American boxer was Bill Richmond (1763–1829), a slave-born African American, known as the Black Terror, who only lost one fight in 1805 , when at age 41 he fought against then-world champion Tom Cribb. to be defeated in the 60th round. Also prominent at that time was Tom Molineaux (1784-1818), a Virginia slave who bought his freedom with his boxing earnings and who also lost to Cribb in 1811 .
The rules of the London Prize Ring
American boxer John L. Sullivan (1858-1918) is considered the last bare fist boxing world champion and the first in glove boxing.
In 1838 the British Pugilists’ Protective Association established a new set of rules for boxing, which quickly spread throughout Great Britain and the United States. The new provisions were based Broughton rules, and were known as Rules of the London Prize Ring, which translates as rules of boxing for money London .
The London Prize Ring Rules of 1838 consisted of 23 rules. They established a standard for the construction of 24-foot (7.3m) rings, the assistants of the boxers and their functions to serve them, the umpires and referee, the regulation of the corners, the 30 seconds of the fallen boxer to return to the center of the ring ready to restart the fight, and various prohibitions such as entering the ring during the progress of the round, that of the assistants to address or attack the opponent boxer, to hit the head, to hit the fallen opponent or with one knee on the mat, from hitting below the waist, from using fingers or nails to injure the opponent, from kicking, etc.
The London Prize Ring Rules maintained bare-knuckle boxing, but introduced the possibility that each boxer could put one knee on the mat to stop the fight during the 30-second count, in order to allow a better recovery. In 1853 the rules of the London Prize Ring were extended, and in 1866 the New Rules sanctioned by the newly created Pugilistic Benevolent Society were established.
During the era of bare-knuckle boxing, there was no amateur boxing. The fights were always carried out for the prize money that was put at stake – hence the term prize-ring – and the spectators made bets that were paid on the spot. The activity had always been illegal, but it had survived because it had great popular support and because it had been supported by many influential men.
There was also no variety of categories according to the weight of the fighters. There was only one champion, who used to be one of the heaviest. The term light weight began to be used at the beginning of the XIX century and sometimes fights were organized between the lighter men, but there was no specific championship for them.
Barefoot boxing for the prize was limited to Anglo-Saxon countries and although in the 18th century the main boxers were British, in the course of the 19th century the United States was displacing England, both as the main place of the fighting and as the origin of the most outstanding boxers. <
By the mid-nineteenth century, however, the decline of bare-knuckle boxing was evident and in the mid-nineteenth century prize fighting suffered, for a variety of internal reasons, a sharp decline in adherence. The prize fight, which always had a dubious association with the criminal underworld, had now clearly become a vehicle for betting interests: the bouts were arranged, the fighters and referees bought, with the ideal of a fair fight giving way. to the presumption of corruption.
In this way bare-knuckle boxing was slowly disappearing. In 1882 the English courts decided, in R v. Coney, that a bare-knuckle fight constituted a criminal assault causing injury, regardless of the consent of the participants.
The 8 of July of 1889 the Sullivan-Kilrain fight took place, considered the last fight bare – knuckle championship with the victory of the first. Precisely the American John L. Sullivan is considered a bridge between bare fist boxing and boxing with gloves, being the last world champion of the former and the first of the latter.
The era of glove boxing
In 1867 the Lillie Bridge Grounds sports center was opened in London. There, at the initiative of John Graham Chambers, the Amateur Athletic Club established its headquarters, an organization that decided that year to organize the first amateur boxing championships in history, also establishing for the first time three categories according to the weight of the boxers: lightweight, middleweight and heavyweight. The tournament was sponsored by John Douglas, 9th Marquis of Queensberry, and used a set of twelve rules that Chambers had written two years earlier, and which would be published at that time as the Queensberry Rules for the Sport of Boxing, or as are universally known, Queensberry Rules.
The Queensberry Rules originated modern boxing. There it was established that boxers should wear gloves, that the rounds should last three minutes with one minute of rest between them, the count of ten seconds to the fallen boxer and the prohibition of taking, pushing or hugging the opponent.
The first fighter to win a world title under these rules was the American Jim Corbett, who defeated John L. Sullivan in 1892 at the El Pelícano Athletic Club in New Orleans , USA . With the gradual acceptance of the Marquis of Queensberry’s rules, two clearly differentiated branches of boxing emerged: the professional and the amateur. Each of them has produced its own local, national and international regulatory bodies, with its own variations of the rules.
In the Olympics San Luis 1904 (United States) were included boxing as an Olympic sport, establishing seven classic categories: heavyweight, light heavyweight, Welterweight, lightweight, featherweight, bantamweight and flyweight.
World diffusion of boxing
“Dempsey and Firpo”, painting by George Wesley Bellows. Luis Ángel Firpo was the first Ibero-American to fight for a world title, in 1923 .
From the end of the 19th century, boxing began to spread in non-Anglo-Saxon countries, mainly in those in which there was British or American influence, such as Argentina , Uruguay , Panama , Cuba , Mexico , Puerto Rico , the Philippines , South Africa and in Spain . In Argentina, the first boxing championship was held in December 1899 , consecrating Jorge Newbery, one of the forerunners of the sport in that country, as champion. In 1903 the French Federation of Boxing Clubs was organized. In Spain, Barcelona hosted some boxing halls –more willful than scientific- from1876 . In 1903 the Sportsmen’s Club was created in Barcelona, in which the French professor Vidal offered boxing exhibitions, and in 1908 his nephew, Jean Vidal, opened a boxing hall in the Vila Gymnasium. At that time it was also practiced, on a small scale, in the Basque Country or in the Spanish Gymnastic Society in Madrid .
In June of 1923 , within days of the French Eugene Criqui and Filipino Pancho Villa, become the first world champions not Anglo – Saxon, to the get the featherweight title, the first and the flyweight title, the second. That same year, Argentine Luis Ángel Firpo fought for the world heavyweight title against champion Jack Dempsey, knocking him out of the ring with one blow, although he was not awarded the victory. In 1928 the Argentines Arturo Rodríguez Jurado and Víctor Avendaño, became the first Ibero-Americans to become world champions by obtaining the gold medal at the Amsterdam Olympic Games, in the heavyweight and medium-heavyweight categories, respectively. In 1929 Panamanian Panama Al Brown became the first Ibero-American to achieve a professional world title, by becoming the bantamweight champion.
American boxers have dominated world boxing, especially in the heavyweight category, taking the most crowns. Of the 115 victories for the professional heavyweight title, obtained from 1885 to the end of 2008 , 81 were by fighters from the United States. Among the most prominent are Jack Dempsey, Joe Louis, Rocky Marciano, Archie Moore (record of 141 knockouts), Muhammad Ali, Joe Frazier, George Foreman, Mike Tyson, etc.
The first non-American heavyweight champion was the British Bob Fitzsimmons (1889-1905), the first to introduce footwork and lateral movements. From then until 1980, there were only four non-American maximum weight champions: Canadian Tommy Burns (1908-1915), German Max Schmeling (1932-1933), Italian Primo Carnera (1934-1935) and Swedish Ingemar Johansson (1960-1962). In 2001 , Puerto Rican John Ruiz became the first “Latino” to win the world heavyweight title.
Other great professional world champions, in the rest of the categories, were: Ricardo López in the straw and fly weights; Johnny Tapia and Khaosai Galaxy at flyweight; Éder Jofre and Pascual Pérez in bantamweight; Gabriel Elorde in feather and super feather weights; Kid Chocolate , Julio César Chávez and Manny Pacquiao at super featherweight; Alexis Argüello in super featherweight and light weights; Kid Pambelé, Wilfred Benítez, Sugar Ray Robinson, Roberto “Mano de Piedra” Duran, Thommy Hearns and Marvin Hagler at welterweight; Jake LaMotta and Carlos Monzón at middleweight; etc.
In amateur boxing, American boxers have also predominated – although less than in professional boxing, followed by Cubans. In the Olympic boxing medal table, from 1904 to 2008, the following are the top ten positions, according to the number of gold medals obtained: United States (48), Cuba (32), Italy (15), Soviet Union (14) , Great Britain (14), Hungary (10), Poland (8), Russia (8), Argentina (7) and South Africa (6). Among the outstanding Olympic champions who did not enter professionalism are the Cubans Teófilo Stevenson and Félix Savón, and the Hungarian László Papp, each of them three-time Olympic champions.
Throughout the twentieth century , new categories were added and their limits modified, extending the range from the lowest weight, the minimum weight or straw, to the highest weight, the super heavyweight, currently in force.
The extension of the combats and rounds have also been modified. In professional boxing, in 1982 , the World Boxing Council took the initiative, followed later by the other organizations, to reduce the duration of the title fights to twelve rounds – previously it was fifteen rounds – after the boxer Duk Koo Kim died. as a result of brain damage suffered in a fight, stopped in the 14th round, against champion Ray “Boom Boom” Mancini.
Professional boxing
During the 17th and 19th centuries, the motivation for boxing fights was money, as fighters competed for the prize, promoters controlled tickets, and spectators bet on the outcome. The modern Olympic movement rekindled interest in amateur sport, and amateur boxing became an Olympic sport in 1904. In its current form, Olympic fights and other amateur fights are typically limited to three or four rounds, the score is computed by points based on the number of clean punches that have landed regardless of impact, and the fighters wear protective head gear, reducing the number of wounds, knockdowns and knockouts.
Bouts in professional boxing are generally much longer than fights in amateur boxing. Bouts are typically fought in the range of ten to twelve rounds, although four rounds fought are common for less experienced fighters and boxers from sports groups. In addition, professional two- or three-round bouts are held, especially in Australia. In the early 1900s, it was common for fights to have an unlimited number of rounds, ending only when a boxer chose to retire, thus benefiting high-energy boxers like Jack Dempsey.
Fifteen rounds remained the recognized international limit for championship fights for most of the 20th century, until the late 1980s, when championship bouts were cut to twelve rounds to improve protection for participants. . Head protectors are not allowed in professional matches, and boxers are generally allowed to receive much more punishment before the fight is stopped. Although at any time, the referee can stop the bout, if he thinks that one of the participants cannot defend himself due to injury. In that case, the other participant gets a victory by technical knockout.
A technical knockout is also determined to the fight, in which a boxer receives a blow that causes a cut that the doctor determines dangerous. For this reason, boxers frequently employ people responsible for treating wounds and in charge of stopping bleeding (cutmen), whose job it is to treat the boxer between rounds so that he can continue despite a cut. If a fighter simply decides not to continue fighting, or if his corner stops the fight, then the winning boxer is also credited with the victory by technical knockout. Unlike amateur boxing, professional male boxers have to show their chests.
Professional boxing remains by far the most popular form of the sport globally, although amateur boxing is predominant in Cuba and in some former Soviet republics. For most fighters, an amateur career, especially at the Olympics , helps develop skills and gain experience in preparation for a professional career.
Female boxing
Although there is a history dating back to the 18th century, the sport of boxing played by women has taken longer to gain acceptance and popularity among athletes in many countries, affected by mechanisms of prejudice and discrimination, which required famous trials in several countries to guarantee the right of women to practice it.
There are many similarities with men’s boxing in terms of the athlete’s technique and dedication, although there are also some differences. Women’s boxing will be part of the 2012 London Olympics .
In the last decades, derived from the sport of boxing and separated from one aspect of the spectacle (even more than athletic), there have been female bouts not necessarily regulated by sports associations, but of a more informal nature that have been presented primarily to male audiences; These encounters, being practically non-regulatory, can use larger gloves.
Male boxing
Boxing practiced by men takes on a traditional character, practically all over the world. Historically, men’s boxing has been limited and questioned due to the possibility of suffering serious damage from fighters, a fact that has led to an evolution of the rules in order to protect competitors and minimize the chances of suffering damage.
From the early 1970s the men ‘s boxing has tended to fragment into several international associations, severely limiting thereby the possibility of the existence of world champions, often cohabiting several world champions at the same time, according to the association to recognize them .
Amateur boxing
Head protection is mandatory in amateur boxing.
Amateur boxing can be found at the collegiate level, at the Olympic Games, the Commonwealth Games, the Pan American Games , the Odesur Games, and in many other places regulated by amateur boxing associations. Amateur boxing has a scoring system that measures the number of clean punches landed, rather than physical damage. The matches consist of four two-minute rounds in the Olympic Games, the Commonwealth Games, the Pan American Games, and the Odesur Games, and three rounds of two minutes each in a national match regulated by the Boxing Association. Amateur or ABA (Amateur Boxing Association), each with a one minute interval between rounds.
Competitors wear head protectors and gloves with a white knuckle stripe. A punch is considered a scoring hit only when the boxers connect with the white portion of the gloves.
Each hit that lands on the head or torso earns one point. A referee monitors the fight to ensure that the competitors use only legal punches (a belt across the torso represents the low stroke limit – any boxer who hits low (under the belt) is disqualified. The referee also ensures that the fighters do not use holding techniques that prevent the opponent from articulating a blow (swing), if this occurs, the referee separates the fighters and orders them to continue boxing.
Repeated grabbing can result in the boxer being penalized, and ultimately disqualified. The referees will stop the fight if the fighter is seriously injured, if one of the fighters is significantly dominating the other or if the score is drastically unbalanced. Non-professional fights that end in this way can be referred to as: “Referee stopped the fight” (RSC, referee stopped contest), “Highest class of opponent” (RSCO, outclassed opponent), “Highest score of opponent” (RSCOS, outscored opponent “),” Injury “(RSCI, injury) or” Head injury “(RSCH, head injury).
