Boxing
Delivered by Rob Goeckel at the University of Wisconsin.1 "I killed a man. Afterward, they told me that it wasn't my fault) and that anyway it was nothing new. It had happened before. It has happened since. And, believe me, it will happen again."2 This quote was uttered by boxer Roger Donoghue after he fought fellow boxer George Flores in 1951. During the fight, Donoghue punched Flores so mercilessly and with such force that shortly afier the bout was over, Flores went into a coma. He never woke up again.3 This horrif~ing scenario, the sight of one man literally beafing another man's brains out, is what boxing is all about. What's even more frightening is that many, many other fighters have suffered the same fate as George Flores. In fact, as Time magazine reported, in the last decade over seventy boxers have died from boxing-related causes. Moreover, at least 15 percent of all boxers, even if they don't die, incur irreversible brain damage.4 Growing up, like most of you, I watched boxing, and sometimes I even enjoyed it. But as I recently watched Mike Tyson pummel Frank Bruno into submission in a heavyweight championship fight I began to wonder what possessed one man to beat another with
"7 Even heavyweight boxer Mike Tyson says, "This is a hurt business. A blow to the head so that consciousness is lost causes minute or larger hemorrhages, contusions at the base of the brain, and a tearing of nerve fibers that cannot be easily identified. Of all sports to emulate, why boxing, where the object is to move your opponent closer to death? IS You've heard how boxing causes physical and mental damage to its participants, and about the negative effects it has on our society, so now let's take a look at the solutions. Boxing influences how violent some spectators become. 95 In answering my audience analysis questionnaire most of you said the sport of boxing was violent but that the decision to fight should~be left up to the individual. It will have been endorsed by our society, and thousands of people will have cheered for the killer and paid big money to watch the killing happen-all in the name of sports entertainment. Let's stop the madness before someone else loses. A punch thrown by a heavyweight can land with a force exceeding 1,000 pounds, which causes the head to snap back or twist violently, forcing the soft brain to be rammed into the rigid skull like a yolk slammed into the side of an egg. Let's stop the madness before someone else loses. This disease develops when the brain ceases to produce sufficient amounts of dopamine, a substance that helps in the transmission of nerve impulses involved in motor control -11 Perhaps the most poignant example, because he was so admired for his once-strong body, is the case of Muhammad Ali. Ali, once the unbeatable heavyweight champion, the force who claimed that "boxing never scarred his pretty face," has been reduced to a mere shell of a man, a shaking, silent reminder of the brutality of boxing, a brutality which does not discriminate on the basis of race, creed, or religion. has done nothing despite all the evidence that has been levied against boxing. 20 For the sake of fighters, and for the sake of our society, it's important for us to take a stand against this brutal activity. Today the American Medical Association argues that "The principal purpose of a boxing match is for one opponent to render the other injured, defenseless, incapacitated, and unconscious.
Common topics in this essay:
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Kennedy Rockefeller,
Jan Corsellis,
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Acceptance Essays
