Can anybody tell me, what are the origins of this term? What does it refer to? I understand why people are calling boxing "science", but "sweet"? :?
It was coined by A.J.Liebling, a legendary sports writer ---------------------------------------- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jP6AwknmjkU http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0_HOWlGD6o
People will always refer to it as the sweet science but some all to often get the sweet science confused, here is an example, Baldimor vs Mayweather that is what so many will say the sweet science really is. I have to disagree, the sweet science is exactly what Hopkins was able to do with both Tarver and Pavlik, the sweet science was exactly what Holyfield used to destroy mike tyson at his own game. this BS of just throwing a flicker jab and running all night is not a display of the science its a disgrace to the science to be honest with you.
To me, the term sweet science always meant a fluid boxer, stylist, whatever. I imagine there are a number of ways this could be seen.
As a lover of science I dislike the term. Science implies repeatability. Boxing is more an art. You will not get the EXACT result every time. If it were science, it wouldn't be nearly as interesting.
Boxing requires redundancy, study, and is predicated on action and reaction. It is most assuredly an "activity that requires study and method." It satisfies a, if not "the" definition of science. As it is, boxing is both. It's an art and a science.
Martial "Arts" didn't get their name from a reporter/writer. I feel it is a more honest designation. In science you expect the SAME result every time. There may be science involved, but that is not the PRACTICE of boxing. That is art. Applying the principles you have learned on the fly. If boxing were 'sweet science' there would be no need for rematches, let alone trilogies.
I think that your definition of science is too rigid. This content is protected This content is protected This content is protected This content is protected This content is protected This content is protected This content is protected This content is protected This content is protected
It has to be rigid to be valid. Again, "sweet science" is a coined term that has stuck because boxing fans like it because it seems to add some legitimacy to boxing. Like showing up at ringside in a tux? :bart Boxing is what it is.
Boxers (especially the top dogs we know and admire) have the ART of kicking a man's ass down to a SCIENCE, and for me it is SWEET to watch.
It has to be rigid to be valid according to one definition of science. Your insistence on defining science as you do and dismissing other recognized definitions of science is ...rigid. There are at least 2 other definitions that are absolutely befitting to boxing. You call boxing "art" -and yet a rigid purist would argue that it most certainly is not because they would insist on one definition of art. Considering how you define science, I'm not sure why you aren't insisting on defining art just as rigidly. If you would be consistent in your choice of definitions, you would dismiss boxing being called either science or art.
As I write this, I'm on IM with a friend in California that designs fuel cells for a living...... I'll stick with mine, you stick with yours.
Haha! ...And I'm watching youtube where Alexis Arguello is operating like a surgeon on Ray Mancini. Fair enough, my friend.
Leibling used to quote Pierce Egan in his boxing articles for the New Yorker. Egan was an journalist who wrote extensively on the then outlawed sport of boxing in England and compiled them in volumes that he published between 1813 and ~1828. These were called Boxiana. It was Egan who first coined the term "the sweet science of bruising." But it was Leibling who dug it out from under the dust of history adn popularized it. Leibling named a collection of his own essays "The Sweet Science" (that I know you own) as a nod to Egan.