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The Growth Of Boxing

By: Chloe Ramsbottom

Boxing has been about since as early as 3000BC, but formal boxing was first documented in the late 1700’s. The ancient Greeks believed that pugilism or fist fighting was a past-time in which the Gods of Greece played; this was then incorporated into the Olympic Games in 688BC. The only drawback in these early periods were that competitors didn’t have any padded gloves, they merely used leather bound hand wraps sometimes fixed in with metal, which you can envision led to some aggressive and bloody duels some even leading in battles to the death. Sadly fist fighting started to die away after the fall of The Roman Empire on September 4th, 476AD, when the last Emperor of the Western Roman Empire was removed from power.

It wasn’t until the 18th century it started to gain fans and sportsmen back to the game when it changed into a working man’s game during the Industrial Revolution which completely transformed the look of Britain’s agriculture. The bouts and fights in the 18th and 19th century weren’t well structured and came across more like savage street fights rather than the modern day materpeices that we observe now.

The past-time was ultimately known as bare-knuckle boxing and the first champion was James Figg back in 1719, the only problem surrounding this was there were no rules set out, so contenders could punch their opponents below the waist and sometimes fights ended with death.

This all changed when in 1743 Jack Broughton a heavy weight champion was determined to draw up seven rules for how boxing should be conducted, these rules in due course adapted and became part of the London Prize Rules and eventually the Marquess of Queensbury’s Rules which are today’s set values. These regulations helped defend all contenders by enforcing the 30 second rule which meant if a man was down for 30 seconds or longer the fight was completed, so ultimately a man who is down for the count could not be persistently punched. Jack Broughton also created the first form of padded gloves which were called mufflers; these brilliantly cut the amount of blood and damage received from a strike.

Advancing towards modern times, one of the most significant and inspirational boxers of all time, and perhaps the best of all time is Muhammad Ali who won the World Heavyweight Title on three occasions which makes him the only man to have done so in boxing history.

There were a number of fights that can be claimed as the best of all time, but two key ones stand out. The first being in 1974 which was promoted by Don King and named as The Rumble In The Jungle which saw one of the biggest upsets in boxing history as the underdog Ali faced defending champion George Foreman, in which Ali "danced" his way to victory. Ali came away from this fight brimming with confidence and kept his form going as he went into the Thrilla In Manila bout against Joe Frazier and defeated him in a boxing match that Ali described as the closest he has felt to death.

Muhammad Ali altered the boxing world and left a legacy of greatness in the golden age of boxing.

Article Source: http://articleaddict.com

Chloe is a dedicated writer writing about the history of boxing on behalf of Setanta Online

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