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Boxing: Is it too violent? Your attention is “requested”!

Boxing: Is it too violent? Your attention is “requested”!. How did such a violent sport start?. Is it no longer violent enough?. Some questions to consider: Answer the following boxing questions in your groups. Why does someone want to watch/do this?

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Boxing: Is it too violent? Your attention is “requested”!

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  1. Boxing: Is it too violent? Your attention is “requested”!

  2. How did such a violent sport start? Is it no longer violent enough?

  3. Some questions to consider: Answer the following boxing questions in your groups • Why does someone want to watch/do this? • What can we learn about the society that supports it?

  4. The beginnings • Ancient Olympic games Fight to the death! • Rome- banned the practice • England-Prize fighting • Early America outlawed Prize fighting

  5. Prizefighting- illegal, yet it happened Rise of prizefighting was integral part of American social and economic development Working class activity - working-class sensibility For the upper and middle classes boxing symbolized urban depravity

  6. Blood and Wages Industrialization Working class as “wage slaves” of modern capitalism Ideal of working-class prizefighters vs ideal of the “model” worker Partially as a reaction to the wage system, workers revitalized blood sports

  7. Another Round? Saloons - the heart of working-class life - prizefights Working-class culture deprived men of freedom, self-governance, and thus “masculinity” Day-labor undermined masculinity by making it nearly impossible for a man to prove his manhood by being a good breadwinner

  8. A Man Among Men Boxing as a rejection of the “cult of domesticity” Maleness and masculinity confirmed not in the company of women but in the company of other men Boxing as a means of bestowing male honor

  9. Sweet Science? Boxing shaped violence into art, gave it order and meaning The pit rendered mayhem rule-bound instead of anarchic, voluntary rather than random A properly carried out fight was a performance, a pageant, a ritual, that momentarily imposed meaning on the savage irrationalities of life The ring offered a form of cultural opposition or resistance 

  10. John L. Sullivan (1881-1892) • Irish • Boston Strong Boy “Yankee” • Challenged anyone to fight him for $500 • Symbol of self-determination • Last bare-knuckle champion/1st gloved champion

  11. James J. Corbett(1892-1897) • “Gentleman Jim” • Father of Modern Boxing • Knocked out Sullivan in 21 rounds in 1892 • Boxing instructor in the manly art of self-defense

  12. James J Jeffries (1899-1905) “Boilermaker” 6’ 3” 225 (100 Yards in about 10 seconds) The Champions of the time would not fight black challengers but they claimed white supremacy. When Jeffries retired in 1905 as heavyweight champ there was a lack of good fighters to fill the gap.

  13. Boxing: Has it passed it’s prime? • The biggest gains in boxing popularity have been in women’s participation! • Lack of bad guy we love to hate or hate to love • Lack of identification with a “barbaric” sport • Other ways to fill the thirst for blood • Decline of industrial America • Pay-Per-View

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