Nigel Benn quotes from Australian sports paper

Benn was incredibly exciting. But at the time we thought he did not have a good chin at all. Certainly not as good a chi as his peers...Eubank, Watson Collins..

 

Of course safety needs to be taken seriously, but that's not the same thing as trying to make the sport "safe" to the point where it's undermined.

There is little risk at the moment of boxing "not continuing". Maybe a few years back there were more vocal people that wanted it banned, but today there is very little political interest in a ban on boxing.

The sport just isn't under threat. It doesn't need to be made any safer.

(Not that we shouldn't, where possible, make it safer, if it isn't damaging the nature of the sport.)

Things change. There is no reason they can't go in the other direction.

Yeah, because promoters know that some people like it as entertainment...

 

I mean boxers aren't just there to display skills, although that's a part of it no doubt.

They are there to be the modern eqivalent--if watered down--of gladiators.

 

Which is what they are, and rightly safety has to be priority.

 

Why does safety have to be priority?

If safety is really the priority then best to cancel all the fights.

 

That is true, it is incredibly hard to justify the sport in this day and age. The only 'defence' in the UK is: If a fighter passes strict medicals and is willing to participate, who are you to stop them?

 

Yeah.
The best explanation for continuation of professional boxing is that it would go on anyway, illegally.
Also, if people are allowed to go mountaineering and horse riding, sky diving, caving, rugby and what not ... then why not boxing. I know we can list the differences but I guess boxing's primary ethical problem is that it involves crowds of frenzied spectactors baying for blood, and two guys intentionally trying to render the other senseless.
For whatever reason, the status of boxing in the ethical realm had lead to it being watered-down, often to the point where it has lost its integrity/credibility in the sporting realm. Sometimes anyway.

 

Whats hard to justify about it?
Rugby players get broken necks, NFL players retire bodies absolutely wrecked in a few years. Whats difficult to justify about boxing?
Injuries are much less frequent than in other sports, serious injuries much less frequent.
Put it this way, what other contact sport do you regularly see guys in their 40s competing at close to the elite level, or in Hopkins case, close to 50?