Is Boxing worth it?

Pro body builders have it worse, I believe.

 

The bold part especially. This about sums up my thoughts about boxing in general and about boxers carrying on too long. As we just saw with Donaire.

Yeah, it's dangerous, and yeah some carry on too long and end up with more damage than they should have taken, but again, see the bold text. If Donaire had been Nonito the janitor who lived off terrible food, cigarettes, and a pint of whiskey a day, nobody except perhaps a direct family member would say ****.

The one thing I would like would be for medical tests to include brain scans for CTE and full disclosure of those results to the fighter and the fighter alone. I'd like for them to KNOW their condition, but beyond that, if a man wants to keep on longer than he should, it's not for me to stop him, again, see the bold text.

And, ****, life ****s people anyway. My mother is 76, has never drank, smoked, done drugs, or eaten an unhealthy meal in her life. Always worked out. Never a pound overweight. Always active. And at 76, she's crippled, in a wheelchair, with zero short term memory due to dementia. She literally did EVERYTHING you're supposed to, and aging ****ed her.

 

Nothing like it used to. It probably will make full face shields mandatory within the next decade which will basically end fighting.

 

Not worth it IMO. Hitting an innocent guy in the head as hard as you can until he loses consciousness is not good for anybody involved.

I have thought it for the longest time, while still watching. It's been like 7 since I mostly stopped and substitited it with basketball.

 

Did your mum do ok until fairly recently or has she had the dementia and lack of mobility for a long time ? I suppose, 76 while not old, depending on what you class as old, is a decent innings ?

My Grandad is 85 and had pretty bad dementia, but he was fine really until about 5 years ago when my grandma died, fit all his life did so much sport. Boxed a bit but only for two or three years I think. Can still talk to him a little bit but not really a conversation as such, I don’t think he’d trade his life up to 80 for the last 5 years of better health at his age.

Agree with Nonito the unhealthy Janitor, everything is a risk at the end of the day. Look at Chris Hoy , still young and always been healthy and probably not too long to live.

 

Every punch landed takes something away from the brain. As Dr. Eubank said: Boxing is a mugths game.

It's interesting seeing the lack of talent coming through these days. It's most likely because parents are more cautious putting their kids into boxing seriously now.

 

They sure are. As usual, the ones who still give it a go come from the poorest places and usually wouldn't ever do it if they saw alternative career for themselves. That's why we've seen so many Eastern Euros and so few Americans or white Western Euros near the top recently.

It's kind of like with prostitution. Hard to see it ever going away, but it's better not to get involved.

 

Boxing is for a select bunch of mentally dearranged people.

You basically have to enjoy getting your braincells punched out. It's against the survival instincts of most humans....

The beauty of boxing is watching a man meet his match then enter the pits of hell and either rise, thrive or falter. That's what fighting is about. Those are the fights which are never forgotten to time.

 

Agree with most of this but I wouldn't say all boxers are spoiled, all of the world champion level ones maybe, especially for the money they get. That's how we end up with the Tank Davis and Ryan Garcia's of the sport. There are pro journeyman who have got records like 8-92-3, getting flatlined every weekend and have less money in the bank than I do. It really depends on the level they're at.

 

Federal law requires commercial airline pilots to retire at 65 and for Air Traffic Controllers the mandatory retirement is 56 due to cognitive and stress‑related safety concerns.

Maybe there should be a mandatory retirement age for fighters as well? I'd set it at age 40 for boxers

 

The mobility and dementia has been the past 5 years really. She had back surgery in an attempt to get some QOL back, but it was unsuccessful.

The difference between her and my father (they're long since divorced) is shocking. My father is fine. Age 76, still sharp, walks perfectly upright at a normal walking speed, plays 18 holes of golf a few days a week, has an active social life, still works part time (by choice), etc.

Dementia sucks; sorry to hear about granddad. But yeah, if he got to 80 healthy, that's a good run. My mother's dementia is odd -- her long term memory isn't that bad, but she has very little short term memory. So I can have a conversation with her like it was 10 years ago, but she won't remember it. She knows she has the short term memory issue and keeps a little reporter's notepad with her at all times, writes notes on things she wants to remember.

Yep. When when Nonito the unhealthy janitor has a massive heart attack at age 53, nobody flips out and says the crap food he ate and the vices he enjoyed should be banned (nobody sane anyway).

 

I listened to a recent speech by Fernando Vargas, and unfortunately, he seemed to be speaking a bit poorly. He reminded me of Toney when he started speaking poorly years ago. Hopkins, on the other hand, seems to be in very good shape, as has already been said, he could have spent many years in prison without boxing. Instead, he's business partner with De La Hoya, is in good health and seems to have become a wiser person as he gets older. Lennox Lewis has also aged well, it's always a pleasure to listen to him. It's certainly true that boxing is a very tough sport, more so than others.

 

Pro boxing, no. Not unless you are going to be a champion which is impossible to tell.

A bit of amateur boxing and sparring? Could be a huge benefit to the majority of folks. We don't know the exact damage done by each shot taken.

Being a journeyman making not great money is absolutely not worth it.

 

All judges and elected officials should have to retire at 65.

 

I’m not sure. The others are responsible for potentially hundreds of other peoples lives, a boxer only for himself , possibly his family.