Athletes get into boxing for a variety of different reasons such as fitness, discipline or to improve on skills but there is a lot of anxiety when it comes to the sport, due to the misconception of the dangers and perceived brutality within the sport.
Boxer Matthew Jenkins joined the sport because, “He just wanted to get fit, but has seen many rewards to himself, both physically and mentally, training for months helps me to stay focused.”
In fact, when you look at the fatalities per thousand boxers, the percentage rate is 0.12%, which is actually a lower rate than nine other sports, such as American football and motorcycling which are closer to one percent. Skydiving and horse racing exceed these by a large amount, hitting over twelve percent per thousand people who compete in the sport.
Club captain Will Gillies said, “I’ve got to thank boxing, it has made me grow up and become a man, whilst making me much more confident in my body as I used to be skinny. It’s also taught me a lot of respect and helped me to meet a lot of people who I never would have met.”
The problem with this is that it actually deters people away from getting into boxing because parents worry about their children and people believe the nature of getting punched leads to a lot of different problems in life.
Leeds Beckett fighter Zaran Asad Sulemen, who has been boxing for over ten years, said, “When I first started, none of my friends and family wanted me to box, they all thought I was going to get my face broken or it was going to make me violent, but if anything, the longer I’ve been in boxing, the better my life has gotten.”
Another thing that people don’t always think about is the rules that are actually set in place to make the sport safer. They of course have assessments and weigh ins before the fights to make sure the fighters are in the right condition and that no boxer is too heavy or too light to be fighting another one. This is so important because if the fighters don’t weigh in at similar weights, the punches that they are throwing or getting hit by would be dangerous.
They have professional referees who are in place to make sure that they can stop the fight if it looks like there could be a danger to one of the fighters and they are of course trained in how to stop this in the smoothest way that means the fighter can be saved as quickly as possible.
Finally, they make sure all the equipment used is in place to make sure that the fighters are as protected as possible, such as the boxing gloves themselves which have padding in them so the punch is of course not as a hard as if it was bare fists, head gear is worn by the fighters at an amateur level to protect the brain and give a much less chance of receiving concussion and then finally the floor itself is padded in the ring so that if the boxer hits the floor, there should be absolutely no chance of an injury occurring.
Overall, once this misconception of boxing becomes more mainstream, people will be less scared to join the sport because there is no reason as to why they should be when there is so many safety measures and mental or physical benefits to taking up this sport, especially when the boxers themselves push to show people and spread awareness in the fact that there isn’t the dangers people believe.
