PAVLOVIAN RESPONSE TO BOXING DEATH
By Uncategorized September 26th, 2005
There are some things you can count on. No sooner had the tragic passing of Leavander Johnson been announced to the public than the medical professionals started chiming in about abolishing boxing.
The first medicos out of gate were the men in white coats from New Zealand, whose Medical Association is demanding that boxing be banned. Dr. Peter Foley, the GP Council chairman, claims “boxing is a form of interpersonal violence unacceptable in modern society.� He says “we condemn other sorts of violence, so it is high time boxing was condemned as well.�
It seems old Doc Foley may have confused the Hippocratic Oath with the Hypocrite’s Oath, and he’s not the first nor last of his kind, but he should turn his attention to healing the sick, and leave the resurrecting to us.
People have been calling for the abolition of boxing for as long as there was boxing to abolish. In the old days the crusade was fueled by the prudes, the bluenoses, the teetotalers, the burn-in hell-repent-you-sinners bible-thumpers. Throw in an opportunistic politician or three, get some compromised newspaperman to beat the drum loudly in the media, and what should be a non-issue – two men fighting – gets lumped with prostitution, drug addiction, white slavery, you name it … while the bull spews from the bully pulpit.
Nowadays, whenever there’s a fatality in the ring, the doctors are the first to step up to the plate. We in the boxing community grant them all due respect – they do, after all, have scalpels – and let them have their say, no matter how disagreeable, no matter how off the wall. There’s no disputing that, from a medical standpoint in boxing, things have never been better, but the meat wagon is still in use (it’s just harder to see, hidden as it is behind an ambulance).
According to The Spokesman-Review of Spokane, Washington, nearly 900 boxers have died since 1920 as a result of injuries in the ring.
“It is time to ban boxing,â€? the editorial said, “a sport in which death is the predictable outcome of athletic proficiency … even among prizefighters who walk away, the American Association of Neurological Surgeons estimates 15-40 percent of ex-boxers have some form of chronic brain injury and most professional fighters – whether they have apparent symptoms or not – have some degree of brain damage.”
Every punch causes brain damage, but so does watching too much TV.
When the writer Carlo Rotella was asked about the abolition of boxing, he said, “Nobody becomes a boxer by accident. You have to significantly depart from the path of least resistance to even find the fight world, and it’s very hard for men and women who try boxing to stick with it. Fighters aren’t pushed into boxing; they’re drawn to it, and usually for reasons other than money.
“If your main motivation is to prevent the harm done to the bodies and futures of fighters, then you can save more bodies and futures by abolishing scholastic football, or fast-food franchises, or fashion advertising. If you’re really worried about brain damage, abolish action movies: you’ll save many more minds in the long run.â€?
Not everyone agrees. Take, for example, Dr. George D. Lundberg. He ignited the debate about banning boxing in 1983 when, as editor of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), he railed against boxing and called it an “obscenity” that “should not be sanctioned by any civilized society.”
And not a word about universal health care? Say, what’s up, Doc?
Lundberg predicted in a 1986 JAMA editorial that by the year 2000 boxing would be banned.
Wrong again.
When reason fails to persuade those who love with their opinions more than they love hard facts, maybe some numbers will help them see the light.
Boxing: 10 deaths a year
College Football: 11 deaths a year
Hang Gliding: 169 deaths a year
Horse Racing: 23 deaths a year
Motorcycle Racing: 77 deaths a year
Mountaineering: 308 deaths a year
Scuba Diving: 1100 deaths a year
Skydiving: 370 deaths a year
We can’t help but conclude that scuba diving is bad for your health; but instead of abolishing scuba diving – or boxing, for that matter – let’s open our hearts, let’s join hands, let’s put our heads together, and abolish the abolitionists.
Robert Ecksel
(Robert Ecksel is editor of The Sweet Science. To access the rest of his writing, CLICK HERE)
September 26th, 2005 at 11:01 pm
To the abolitionists–
Let’s also ban driving..how many people does that kill per day, much less per year????? then alcohol–that has to go too because that makes us bad drivers, which then kill and injure far more than if we had no access to alcohol…. …shouldn’t these activities be abolished before boxing–they kill far more people–but since we must, as a society, drive–that’s isn’t even something that enters the mind but maybe if you are really worried about people being killed, there are plenty of things you could dirtect your energy that would save far more lives–maybe you could try to make people stop smoking—–that would save more lives than if you were to abolish boxing.
September 29th, 2005 at 9:34 pm
It’s also worth noting that boxing is a worldwide, year-round sport. College football, on the other hand is played almost exclusively in North America and is seasonal.
October 1st, 2005 at 11:38 am
It’s all a matter of intent -the ultimate goal in boxing is to destroy your opponent, temporarily, hopefully. It’s not going to be abolished but it is evident that the governing organizations have lost control. I get a laugh out of the neuro-surgeons that immediately hold seminars to discuss things once a death occurs, but never come up with a solution. The safety rules that have been adopted really have added other problems. If they are so educated why can’t they come up with something? Because they’re not actively involved in the game.
The list of deaths you have provided is sobering, thank you, but it’s all about perception. The ultimate goal is to destroy your opponent in boxing and that’s what the public hungers for just as the auto crash in car racing.
Look at these new combat sports Muai Thai, and Ultimate Fighting the fans want total destruction and I’ve seen it with the athletic commissioners and doctors at ringside tables munching on their hors d’oeuvres.
The commissions have to be diligent, firm and vigilant from the curtain raiser to the crowd chaser. It will never be perfect in an imperfect world.
April 3rd, 2006 at 10:29 am
I, Mike Tyson, A professional boxer love boxing and eating ears. I need money, please go to my website and pledge to help me out.
July 3rd, 2006 at 6:07 pm
just go watch, jermain taylor, winky wright, antonio tarver, bernard hopkins and most of the Top 10 heavyweights, no one will die from seeing these boxers in action, they are a joke!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
December 12th, 2006 at 3:40 am
Curious where you found the stats on skydiving deaths. After reviewing my sources (http://www.skydivingfatalities.info/), I note less than 700 in the last 11 years—which would be only two years according to your numbers.
I am also curious about where you found the SCUBA deaths. I haven’t found a good source of information yet.
Your stat’s for skydiving deaths appear to be inflated, why?
Jeff
April 5th, 2007 at 12:27 am
Have you ever wondered why the so-called sport of boxing attracts only gangsters and criminals (e.g. Mike Tyson), uneducated and people from the poorest levels of society?
May 22nd, 2007 at 4:39 pm
Yeah, look at Oscar De la Hoya. Truly a criminal in every sense of the word, and uneducated as well.
Idiot.
December 4th, 2007 at 3:25 pm
I don’t even like boxing but banning it is pretty stupid.
Saying it’s brutal or uncivilised is just a matter of opinion (you could say the same about football if you wanted) and people should be free to do what they want.
How does somebody dying doing something they love affect anyone else? They know there’s the risk and they accept it.
December 18th, 2007 at 1:08 am
for Tommy Noel: please educate yourself on combat sports
actually muay thai (aka muay thai kickboxing) is not a new sport. its been around for hundreds of years in thailand.
MMA (ultimate fighting as you call it) is actually MUCH safer than boxing. if you would like to run the numbers on ring deaths, you will only find two. the first, douglas dedge, was in an unsanctioned fight feld on a concrete floor in russia after he couldn’t get medically cleared to fight in the us because of prior medical issues. the second, occurred last month at a professional event in texas, sanctioned by the state of texas, due to a pre-existing blood clot, he then had a rare second blood clot form and never recovered after surgery.
further, MMA has a much lower risk of serous injury to its competitors because of more ways to win a fight. many fights end without a single blow being landed due to submissions. also, the referee can stop a fight at any time if a fighter is not intelligently defending himself. in boxing, they simply give him a standing 8 and allow him to take more punishment.
boxing averages between 10 and 11 deaths a year. MMA has had two in the past 14 years, both due to pre-existing medical conditions, NOT because of actual activity in the ring. that means you are over 70 times more likely to die in boxing, than in MMA. (if you can count those two deaths as actually being MMA related)
July 7th, 2008 at 10:01 pm
OK you can’t even compare boxing’s bloody legacy to MMA. First in this very article you state boxing averages ten deaths a year. Well the UFC has been around since 1993, and the sport received sanctioning around 2002 and there has been one death in a sanctioned MMA contest, one, not the nine per year. Boxers receive about 500-900 punches to the head in a single fight, not to mention body shots. SO your options in boxing are pretty limited. In MMA you have striking and grappling to finish off your opponent as well as his ability to tap out or quit honorably. So which sounds safer, brain trauma or joint trauma?