Pros and Cons - Debbie Newman, Ben Woolgar 2014

Boxing, banning of
Section F. Culture, education and sport

Boxing is a combat sport where two people fight by throwing punches with gloved hands. It originated in Ancient Greece and is an Olympic sport. It is a popular sport in many countries today, but it has many opponents who believe that it is barbaric and that the harm done to the boxers themselves and to society as a whole merits a ban. The arguments in this debate broadly apply to other contact sports (or ’collision’ sports in some terminology) such as some martial arts or rugby.

Pros

[1] Boxing should be banned in order to protect individuals from serious physical injury and death. Boxers have died from injuries they have received in the ring (e.g. the Cuban boxer Benny Paret in the 1960s). Many others have received debilitating, non-fatal injuries. Young people are introduced to these sports at an impressionable age when they may not be old enough to make decisions based on all the relevant facts — there is also great peer pressure to be ’hard’ and take part in boxing, and a promise of huge fame and riches if you are successful. A ban is the only way to ensure that young people in particular are protected from the dangers involved.

[2] Unlike football, cricket, skiing or swimming, in which there may be some incidental injuries from accidents or (in football) illegal tackles, in boxing, injuries result from the central activity of the sport. The whole point is to knock one’s opponent unconscious which can mean temporarily detaching the brain from the inside of the skull. Both the British Medical Association and the American Medical Association have repeatedly called for a ban on boxing. Such forms of ’sport’ are uncivilised and unacceptably dangerous, resulting in paralysis, brain damage and death for many unfortunate participants.

[3] The idolisation of boxers gives young people role models who are revered simply for their brute force and ability to injure other people. The ’fighting talk’ that the boxers engage in before a big fight where they threaten and insult each other magnifies this. Such role models can only have a negative effect and perpetuate the trend towards increased violence and aggression among young people. Rather, we should revere sportsmen who display merits that we value in society.

[4] Violence as entertainment is uncivilised and has a brutalising effect on society. If crowds are encouraged to cheer on fighters in a ring, then they will also cheer on fighters in the school yard or in a bar, or seek to be cheered on themselves. Boxing muddies the message that violence is unacceptable. Seeing a boxer’s nose broken or a fighter knocked unconscious desensitises our responses to violence and normalises something that needs to shock.

Cons

[1] It should be up to individuals to decide whether or not to take part in boxing. We let people decide for themselves whether to drive cars or smoke cigarettes — both, proportionately, far more dangerous. In general, we should let people decide for themselves what risks to take unless there is a good reason not to — for example, heroin taking, which is excessively and universally harmful and destructive and highly addictive.

[2] In fact, there are relatively few deaths from contact sports compared with deaths from incidents of drowning in longdistance swimming and in sailing, for example. There are risks inherent in all sports. Cricket balls on the head, sliding football tackles, skiing accidents, crashes in ’Formula One’ racing are all inherent risks of those pursuits, not in some way incidental, in the same way that accidents in boxing are an inherent risk. The distinction between inherently and incidentally dangerous activities is a spurious one. There is always a referee in the boxing ring, who can maximise safety for the boxers. If boxing matches went underground, they would probably be more brutal.

[3] Boxers can actually be very positive role models: they offer an example of success achieved through hard work and discipline. Many boxers, such as Frank Bruno, have done wonderful service to charities, and others are very articulate — for example, Chris Eubank. Muhammad Ali has been an inspiration to generations both as a boxer and as a man. Many boxers come from working-class backgrounds and go on to become household names in professional boxing or to represent their country in the Olympics. This can be aspirational and offer a way out of poverty to deprived young people.

[4] It is simplistic to believe that admiration for boxers leads to violent behaviour. People find all sorts of scapegoats for the incidence of violent behaviour — television, films, video games, sports — but in fact, violence endures no matter what forms of sport and entertainment prevail. In the nineteenth century, bare-knuckle boxing, a more brutal sport than modern boxing, was immensely popular, but it does not seem that teenagers were more violent then than they are now. Boxing could actually help to make our streets safer by providing a structured outlet for aggression. There are many inner-city programmes that teach boxing to teenage boys to get them away from gangs and into gyms.

Possible motions

This House would abolish contact sports.

This House would ban boxing.

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