Boxing has been known as the 'Sport of Kings'. This comes from the acient Roman emperors and kings watching the hand to hand combats that used to take place in the Colisseum. The sport has come along way since those days. Fighters wear gloves, are properly trained and go through conditioning programs that will envy the best of any other sport.

The one thing though that has plagued the sport of boxing in the past is the amount of deaths being contributed to a boxing match. As a matter of fact, 1,100 fighters had died in a professional boxing ring up to November 2001, the last time that figures were thought to be available.

Back in the early days of professional boxing, fighters fought until the man could no longer. Quitting was for sissies so they thought. Some fights were known to go as long as 60 and 70 rounds. Eventually, the sanctioning bodies of pro boxing knocked the rounds down to 15 and adopted a unique scoring system. In these days, all world championship fights have 12 round limits to them.

Death in a boxing ring is something that goes through every fighters' mind before every bout they compete in. The extreme condtioning programs fighters go through are intense and train the fighter to absorb blows, but repetitive shots to the head have known to cause permenant damage and obviously in alot of cases, death.

The most famous case of a fighter that died as a result of a boxing match was that of former world champion, Ray "Boom Boom" Mancini. On November 13, 1982 he defended his WBA Lightweight world title against South Korean contender, Duk Koo Kim. Not only was this fight known for Kim's death but it was also known as one of the most brutal world title fights of all time as both fighters absorbed huge punches. Mancini in an interview in 1987 said that he thought of throwing the towel in himself because he couldn't see how Kim was taking that much punishment.

Another big fight that ended in death was the welterweight title fight in 1962 between Benny "The Kid" Paret and Emille Griffith. Griffith went on to fight for 15 more years but the guilt of Paret's death always stood with him.

Boxing has taken huge strides in looking out for the welfare of fighters during fights. Referees are more apt to stop fights when a boxer is getting pummelled. The weight and size of gloves have been doctored to help lessen the blow of punches. Fighters have to pass strict physicals and must be tested annually before they can step into the ring.

I seriously doubt that you will ever see boxing banned. As long as the presiding sanctions take the money and time to make sure that the fighters are as safe as possible, the sport of boxing will be here for ages and ages to come.

Learn more about this author, Chad Morgan.
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