BoxRec

sad to read of the death from boxing of another boxer in the Boxing News this week. Will give the lad his name out of respect, CHO HE, a Japan based Chinese boxer died last week due to a brain injury sustained in a bout on 3rd May. Cho was a super-feather who was stopped in the final round of a six rounder having had his man down in the first.
It makes me wonder sometimes whether people wouldn't be better off just getting jobs and channelling pursuing sport down other avenues.......briefly...then I imagine the good that boxing can do, and not just for the top pros but right down to the enthusiast level. Surely there has to be a few remaining bastions within the sphere of sport in which competitors can channel that raw agression and skill that other sports cannot provide.
So what is the answer?
The most obvious one to me which would have the least dramatic effect on the sport would be wearing helmets in the pros. Why not? If it was a crazy idea they wouldn't still be using them in the amateurs would they?
Or what about shorter rounds 2 or 2 and a half minutes maybe??....who said it has to be to the nearest full minute anyway?? Or then there's reducing the rounds boxed, for title fights that would apply to - ten or eleven maybe, I'm sure if they tweaked the scoring a bit, maybe 5 judges it would still be possible to produce a winner.
But out of all of the above I just can't see why the introduction of helmets wouldn't be a good thing, gives the skull that litte extra protection which over rounds surely must make a difference.

So what does anybody else think out of interest??

NorthEastBoxingFan wrote:sad to read of the death from boxing of another boxer in the Boxing News this week. Will give the lad his name out of respect, CHO HE, a Japan based Chinese boxer died last week due to a brain injury sustained in a bout on 3rd May. Cho was a super-feather who was stopped in the final round of a six rounder having had his man down in the first.
It makes me wonder sometimes whether people wouldn't be better off just getting jobs and channelling pursuing sport down other avenues.......briefly...then I imagine the good that boxing can do, and not just for the top pros but right down to the enthusiast level. Surely there has to be a few remaining bastions within the sphere of sport in which competitors can channel that raw agression and skill that other sports cannot provide.
So what is the answer?
The most obvious one to me which would have the least dramatic effect on the sport would be wearing helmets in the pros. Why not? If it was a crazy idea they wouldn't still be using them in the amateurs would they?
Or what about shorter rounds 2 or 2 and a half minutes maybe??....who said it has to be to the nearest full minute anyway?? Or then there's reducing the rounds boxed, for title fights that would apply to - ten or eleven maybe, I'm sure if they tweaked the scoring a bit, maybe 5 judges it would still be possible to produce a winner.
But out of all of the above I just can't see why the introduction of helmets wouldn't be a good thing, gives the skull that litte extra protection which over rounds surely must make a difference.

So what does anybody else think out of interest??

Its just the nature of the sport.

They can change everything and it will still happen to a few.


RIP

I'd fully support 11 rounds over 12, in terms of avoiding draws. The safety aspect does bother me a little, but then that is boxing. Without danger, I wouldn't have respected Floyd Patterson as much as I did. F1 shows how sterility creeps in when risk is taken away.

What I'd like to happen is for the BBC to increase their coverage of the amateurs; that means featuring interviews too. Added to that, proper financial backing for every Olympic hope. Bringing head guards into the pro game would be at odds with the elective nature of the sport I feel. The best solution is to make the amateur titles more important, which unfortunately is most easily achieved through monetary value.

Basically, amateur boxing needs a few recognisable faces to Joe Public. A bit of inspiration for younger kids to emulate. Most of us are put off from growing up fighting in cruddy town halls! 'At least I'd get paid for a pro bout', you end up thinking.

Well I would say No to helmets - don't think they are the answer and in fact I would scrap them for the amateurs.

What I do propose though is 2 minute breaks between rounds. It will give the corner/doctors more time to assess a fighter. I'm sure Michael Watson wouldn't have taken that punch in the 12th had the corner had more time to assess just how damaged he was.

Imagine the ITV ad break though.

stujones wrote:Well I would say No to helmets - don't think they are the answer and in fact I would scrap them for the amateurs.

What I do propose though is 2 minute breaks between rounds. It will give the corner/doctors more time to assess a fighter. I'm sure Michael Watson wouldn't have taken that punch in the 12th had the corner had more time to assess just how damaged he was.

Could backfire, more rest means more time to recover and fight harder, that could increase the risk.

DG. wrote:

stujones wrote:Well I would say No to helmets - don't think they are the answer and in fact I would scrap them for the amateurs.

What I do propose though is 2 minute breaks between rounds. It will give the corner/doctors more time to assess a fighter. I'm sure Michael Watson wouldn't have taken that punch in the 12th had the corner had more time to assess just how damaged he was.

Could backfire, more rest means more time to recover and fight harder, that could increase the risk.

Yeah possibly, although I think it gives you more time to take on more water - which will lessen will help you keep hydrated.

Also - why oh why don't they use isotonic drinks. Boxng is the only sport that when drinks are involved it can only be water.

Another safety feature, that again should be easy to implement is a cooling system. Put fans behind the ring lighting or something. Generally less tradgies happen in outdoor rings - boxers need to be cool.

I don’t believe that professional boxing needs to be meddled with as it stands in all honesty. We have already seen a reduction from 15 rounds to 12 rounds for world title fights for the very reason it’s suggested that reducing it further may guard against tragedies in the ring – it may or may not prevent a few instances but it will not eliminate it.

I wouldn’t like to see the introduction of headgear, 2 min rounds, 2 min rest periods and/or shorter distances because it will dilute the sport so far away from its roots and history that it would marginalise it further and make it more akin to amateur boxing.

In preparing for a fight, the onus must always be on the figher and his team to ensure that he has boiled down to make the weight sensibly and rehydrate adequately come fight time (that’s why they introduced weigh-ins 24 hrs before fight night).

Ideas like fans, coolers, isotonic drinks etc. sound good to me. But as sad and unfortunate as it is tragedies will happen not just because of lack of discipline in weght making/re-hydration but because some fights can be brutal.