Boxing History

Boxing is a sport played between two players. Boxing is the act, activity, or sport of fighting with the fists, especially according to rules requiring the use of boxing gloves and limiting legal blows to those striking above the waist and on the front or sides of the opponent. Boxing is also called pugilism and prizefighting. Boxing sports involving attack and defense with the fists. In the modern sport, boxers wear padded gloves and fight bouts of up to 12 three-minute rounds in a roped-off square known as the ring.

Boxing History

Depicted on the walls of tombs at Beni Hasan in Egypt, dating from about 2000 to 1500 B.C. boxing is one of the oldest forms of competition. A part of the ancient Olympic Games, the sport was exhausting and brutal. Boxing was one of the oldest events in the ancient Summer Games. Boxing was included in the schedule of the 23rd Olympiad in 688 BC. In boxing, competitors wore leather straps to protect their hands. The combat went on until one gave in or could not go on. The gloves were used to protect the hands of the boxer. Boxing became increasingly brutal over the centuries. Ancient boxers wrapped leather thongs, known as himantes, around their hands and wrists which left their fingers free.

The Greeks were the first to start the Summer Games about 3000 years ago in 776 BC in the plain of Olympia in Peloponnese. The Greeks fought without regard for weight differentials and without interruption, a match ending only when a fighter lost consciousness or raised his hand in resignation. Boxers wound heavy strips of leather around their hands and wrists. The ancient Summer Games grew and continued to be played every four years for nearly 1200 years. In 393 AD, the Christian Byzantine Emperor Theodosius I abolished the Games because of their pagan influences. The ancient Olympics were different from the todays modern Games.

In earlier history fighters used leather thongs on their hands and forearms, while in Rome gladiators used metal-studded leather hand coverings and usually fought to the death. In 1743, Jack Broughton British drew up the first set of boxing rules. Though fights still ended only in knockout or resignation, not until implementation of the London Prize Ring rules in 1839 were kicking, gouging, butting, biting, and blows below the belt eliminated from the boxer's standard repertoire.

In 1867, the fighters used gloves on their hands, though bare-knuckle boxing continued into the late 1880s and rules are called Queensberry rules. In 1888, John L. Sullivan was the last fighters of the great bare-knuckle boxing and first America's sports celebrity, who won a clandestine 75-round match. From Sullivan on, the U.S. became the premier boxing venue, partly because immigrants supplied a constantly renewed pool of boxers.

When the modern Summer Games were started in 1896, the Athens organizing committee decided to omit boxing from the Olympics' schedule as it was too dangerous. The sport was introduced to the 1904 Summer Games in St. Louis. Boxing used for military training in World War I, its emergence as a source of discipline for youth. Again the boxing sport was excluded from Olympic program in 1912 as the Swedish law banned the sport. Later boxing reappeared in the schedule of the Summer Games in 1920. Since then, the sport has been contested at every Summer Games. Today there are 17 primary weight classes in professional boxing. Boxing bolstered its popularity through the 1920s and 30s.

Jack Dempsey from (1919-26) and Joe Louis from (1937-49) were heavyweight (over 190 lb/86.3 kg) champions and were national heroes, Louis becoming one of the first black athletes to gain wide popularity. Since World War II, boxing has proceeded amid corruption and, at times, chaos. Great fighters like Muhammad Ali elicit admiration and fascination, while controversy surrounds others like the repeatedly imprisoned Mike Tyson.

The events included in the boxing are light flyweight, flyweight, bantamweight, and featherweight, lightweight, light welterweight, middleweight, light heavyweight, heavyweight and super heavyweight. Lennox Lewis is generally regarded as the current world heavyweight champion.

Sport Ticket Exchange is the online ticket exchange platform where you can buy or sell Sport Tickets especially Olympic Tickets. Olympic fans that have spare tickets and want to earn profit can Sell Olympic Tickets at Sport Ticket Exchange.


Olympic Boxing Tickets
Sport Ticket Exchange