A Look Into The World Of Boxing

Fist fighting or as we now know it, boxing has been about since as early as 3000BC, but formal boxing was first first began in the late 1700’s. The ancient Greeks understood that pugilism or fist fighting was a game in which the Gods of Greece played; this was then included into the Olympic Games in 688BC. The only downside in these early times were that competitors didn’t have any padded gloves, they simply used leather bound hand wraps sometimes fixed in with metal, which you can imagine led to some fierce and bloody duels some even resulting in battles to the death. Unfortunately fist fighting began to fade away after the fall of The Romans on September 4th, 476AD, when the last Emperor of the Western Roman Empire was removed from power.

In England, in the 18th century, it began to gain fans and sportsmen back to the sport when it was transformed into a working man’s sport during the Industrial Revolution which altered the make-up of Britain’s agriculture. The bouts and fights in the 18th and 19th century weren’t well structured and looked a lot like violent street fights rather than the modern day showcases that we witness now.

The sport was ultimately known as bare-knuckle boxing and the first victor was a man named James Figg back in 1719, the only problem surrounding this was there were no rules set out, so sportsmen were able to hit below the belt and sometimes bouts ended with death.

Something had to be done about this and in the year 1743 Jack Broughton a heavy weight champion decided to put in place seven rules for how boxing should be carried out, these rules in due course adapted and became part of the London Prize Rules and in time the Marquess of Queensbury’s Rules which are today’s set values. These regulations helped look after all contenders by enforcing the 30 second rule which meant if a man was down for 30 seconds or more the fight was over, so ultimately a downed man could not be continually struck. Jack Broughton also created the first form of padded gloves which were called mufflers; these seriously cut the total of blood and harm taken from a hit.

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

One of the most famous fights of all time also included Muhammad Ali and was staged 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 bout filled with self-belief 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 prominence in the golden age of boxing.

Article Source: http://www.new.citynewslive.com

Chloe is a devoted novelist writing about how boxing first began for Setanta Online

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