what's wrong with boxing today?

I’ve heard some commentators say that boxing today is ruined, fixed. Was it ever not so? Is it more so now? What’s the problem? How do fight competitions get arranged and who declares championships and when? Are there boxing rounds over a year to determine who beats whom?

Other than it being a barbaric act, one that would land you in jail if not officially “sanctioned”?

It’s not so barbaric. Amazingly enough, there are rules, and fights are generally stopped if someone is getting hurt too badly.

I sometimes head up to Glen Burnie to see a particularly well-run fight venue, and this holds true there.

Even in a place like this, though, where the sport is run as well as it is anywhere, the fighter gets most of his prize money stripped away by managers, trainers and hangers-on. Most fighters only make a few hundred to a couple thousand bucks for themselves after getting the crap pounded out of them for six rounds or so.

That’s the real problem with boxing.

To paraphrase my friend Merry that works for a boxing promotions company in Vegas, “Because boxers these days are all pussies.”

Two words: Don King.

Read this article – it actually lowered my opinion of him.

Mr. Moto, in this thread (where I got the aforelinked article), a few of us were talking about going to Michael’s some time in the next few months. Consider yourself invited too.

Drederick Tatum:" And so as heavyweight champion, recognized by nine of the fourteen sanctioning bodies…"

This is basically it for me. It is impossible in boxing to develop any great heroes or legends with the ridiculous amount of organizations and regulations. Different rules, scoring systems, etc and custom-arranged rankings and title shots leave us eternally without any true “uncontested champion”. The micro-splitting of weight categories has even further flooded the ranks with too many sub-par fighters. You’ll never have another Rocky Marciano or Marvin Hagler.

Imagine if the NBA underwent reorganization, who would care about the champion of the “Upper Midwest Regional Independent Federation of 6’ 10” ~ 6’ 11" Class Open Rules (Man-to-Man Defense only) League" whether or not a Michael Jordan calibur player was on the team.

Thanks, Gargoyle, for helping to answer my question.

Many professional sports would be illegal if you decided to do them just anywhere. Boxing isn’t barbaric, it is two men or women engaging in an organized fist fight with medical precautions taken. I fail to see how physical conflict is “barbaric” to me it seems “natural.” Just because everything doesn’t fit into a modernist world view doesn’t mean it is wrong or barbaric.

As for why boxing sucks. Well, there is no fair way for boxers to advance. Promoters control everything so great talents may never make a name for themselves in the professional ranks because no one sets them up with the right fights. And the way in which boxers earn title shots is difficult and hard to understand for a casual fan.

Basically there is just too many different boxing bodies, too many weight classes, too much power in the hands of promoters, and no good and organized central body.

Imagine baseball without MLB or football without the NFL, it’d be mayhem, and that is what boxing is.

Actually, Middleweight Champion Bernard Hopkins is pretty much this decade’s Marvin Hagler – he’s the undisputed champion (all the major sanctioning bodies – as well as Ring Magazine – recognize him as champion), he’s beaten all major contenders, and he came up the hard way, just like Hagler. It can be done in today’s sport, but it’s just more difficult.

Getting back to the OP, any commentator who says that boxing is fixed is simply ignorant of the sport. While there may be fixed fights, they usually involve sideshow acts like Butterbean or no-hope “White Hope” fighters like Brian Nielsen or Richie Melito who are trying to pad their record for a big payoff against a name fighter. In any major fight it’s pretty much certain that there is no fix. With the money involved in those big fights, and especially the money involved down the line if a fighter keeps winning, it would be next to impossible to pay a fighter enough to throw a fight. The fighter has nothing to gain by doing so. In the old days there are a number of instances where a fairly big fight was fixed.

In fact, boxing today is probably more on the level than it’s been in the past. There are better medical standards, a better system to prevent fighters from fighting under assumed names, more safeguards in the equipment, etc., than in the past. That’s not to say that everything is perfect. There is plenty wrong with boxing, but today’s sport is certainly cleaner and safer than it was in the past. The unfortunate thing is that this doesn’t really translate into more fans of the sport.

Why don’t more people like it? Well, for one, there aren’t as many white fighters out there. Say what you will, but many people tuned into boxing in the past when they were watching two guys who looked like them or came from the same ethnic background. And a lot of those guys were white. Now most boxers are predominantly Black and Latino. And when I go to fights around D.C., who do I see in the crowds? Black and Latino faces.

Another factor is that in the old days, there were few other sports to watch. You basically had baseball and boxing. Now there are many more sports for fans to watch and for hungry young kids to go into. The kids who would have become boxing champions in the past are now on basketball and football teams.

And, as mentioned above, shady sanctioning bodies, mismatches, and other scum (Don King chief among them) have turned many off from the sport. Of course, we can’t really blame these for the decline in boxing because the sport has always had these elements. In fact, the 50’s was probably the high point of both mob involvement in boxing as well as the sport’s popularity.

Another type of corruption that is often referred to (esp. by people actually in the sport): Boxing also is very decentralized and regulated by state (and foreign) commissions so that promoters can easily exploit & rip off all but the very top 10% or so. Often guys who shouldn’t be fighting are allowed to or guys are promised more than they are actually paid have little recourse – that is one element of “corruption”.

I think Boxing actually is probably less corrupt today than it has been in the past (speaking out my a$$) but I am **totally ** sure that society is less willing to put up with guys dying in the rings or being ripped off too. So it is less corrupt, but our tolerance for a little chicanery is very much less.

In 2003 the GAO did a study and the end result was a Bill by Senator John McCain which reccomended :
pension plans, minimum uniform contracts between boxers and promoters, full financial disclosure by promoters, and* compulsory training and registration for judges and officials**. * These things are not necessarily happening in boxing now

But isn’t boxing the only “sport” where in order to win you must cause some level of brain damage to your opponent?

A big problem for boxing here in Britain (and I am assuming the USA) is that it isn’t on the telly very often.

In the 80s we had three big middleweights Eubank, Benn and Watson who would have some corking set-tos. These were watched by large TV audiences - the same was true of Frank Bruno - these people were seriously famous.

Now we hardly see any of our fighters - Lennox Lewis was always on pay per view (and fought in the usa - at times that aren’t compatible - ie about 4.00am), and the seame is true of all the people who would draw big crowds and audiences.

The same has happened to other “minority” sports such as Rugby League and even cricket: They’re wilting due to lack of exposure.

Considering that at the end of the bout the judges tally the points scored while the ringside doctors give MRIs to the boxers and adjust the points by the amount of brain damage dealt to the opponent, you are perfectly correct. :rolleyes:

The boxer, the doctors, the referee and the corner all have the option to end the bout if it becomes too one-sided. Therefore, unless there is a conspiracy, a bout can be “one-sided” without being unfair.

I don’t follow boxing much but I don’t see that that’s the case. A lot of matches seem to be decided by scoring (punches landed) rather than by KO.

You’d also have to expand that to include many full-contact martial arts events (for example in Judo and Jiujitsu it’s commonplace to choke your opponent unconscious) and perhaps even include some very physical sports such as rugby, Aussie football and American football (where you have great big guys intentionally smashing into each other at high speeds). One of my friends is a former defensive lineman and as he tells it, football is not a sport where there is an “occasional” impact. Knocking the stuffing out of the opposition is part of the game (he had three concussions IIRC and was knocked out on the field at least one time).

Scoring involves punches that “damage” your opponent to some degree. One need not be KO’ed to suffer brain damage. Enough blows to the head in a single fight, if not a career, are sufficient to cause brain damage even if you never are KO’ed in your entire career.

Yeah, I understand that, and obviously one of the quickest ways to end a fight is to land some hard blows to your opponents head, but nothing requires it.

I did a quick search on “how to score boxing” and professional, amateur and Olympic results all came up. None of them mention “damage”. Blows have to have some force behind them though.

Olympics - point is scored for hitting your opponents head or chest with the marked part of the glove.

Pro - here’s a link: Benefits For Truck Drivers

I guess my point is that you don’t have to hit someone in the head or contribute to brain damage to win a boxing match. And there are plenty of sports other than boxing that include many opportunities for similar injuries.

OK that’s two points. The THIRD weapon of the Spanish Inquisition is fear! Surprise and fear! Wait, let me start over…

OK, you killed your momentum with this follow up. True, nobody requires you to hit your opponent in the head, but I don’t think your opponent would necessarily suffer from the same delusions. Speaking as someone whose tried a couple of “I’ll only go for body shots, but you can do whatever” rounds, it’s absurd to think that someone who hitting at full strength would do this.

The standard argument is that no other sports place such an emphasis on hitting someone in the head. Frankly, I can’t think of another sport where the point is indeed to beat your opponent unconscoious (excepting other striking martial arts of course), but here’s something to think about: no one is forcing anyone to be a boxer.

Now, I’ve only boxed at one gym and while I signed a waiver, I don’t think that they specifically had me read a packet on dementia pugilistica. That said, I can’t think of anyone who doesn’t understand that if they box, they stand a greater-than-usual chance of suffering some long-term health problems.

That said, you can quit boxing at any time. I understand that it may be difficult to give up a lifestyle that one wants/boxing can afford, but it’s always the individual’s choice. Same thing for any sports guy who is injured, tells the coach to juice him up on cortisol and go back into the game knowing that it may cause problems later in life.

You really should have given up after two.

Do you have a cite for this? I’ve never heard unconscoiusness being a precondition for victory, nor even a desired outcome.

It certainly happens, but IME, it’s a mistake and not a desired outcome. People tap out to avoid this sort of thing.

I don’t think that bringing up the “brain damage” argument is really all that good. I’d say except for the unfortunate exceptions most boxers suffer less brain damage in their careers than the average alocholic suffers over the same period of time.

And honestly I hear of tons of athletes from football, rugby, soccer, baseball, NASCAR, hockey, and basketball getting concussions. Sports in general involve people getting hurt during regular play.

All of them are consenting adults, to say they shouldn’t be doing what they are doing because it may or may not cause brain damage (and there isn’t any real scientific proof that I’m aware of that the simple action of getting hit necessarily will always cause meaningful damage) is to say anything that may or may not cause brain damage should be banned. Should be also ban alcohol? More and more reports come out every year showing it’s bad for the brain.

Just personal experience. It’s not a precondition for victory any more than a KO is a precondition in boxing, but it does happen. As far as tapouts go, there’s a combination of factors that can lead to choking someone out rather than them tapping - a good choke can render someone unconscious in a few seconds, it’s possible to break out of a chokehold and some of the competitors are VERY competitive and so they feel a choke setting in, work like hell to get out of it but don’t succeed and in a few seconds are lying limp. That’s certainly been the case for people I’ve known who were competing.

Sorry, this is getting a little offtrack…I still maintain that Duckster’s original point (that boxing requires damaging your opponent’s brain to win) isn’t quite right.

Anyone have any stats regarding the number of boxers who wind up with brain injuries?