The Banning Amateur Boxing

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Introduction Recently, there has been a rising concern regarding concussions and contact sports. Rudd, Hodge, Finley, Lewis, and Wang (2016) state that the World Medical Association claims that boxing “produces an alarming incidence of chronic brain injury” (p. 1). In addition to the prevalence of concussion in boxing, Moriarity et al. state that “amateur boxers participating in a carefully supervised competition can have cognitive impairment suggestive of a concussive injury despite the absence of recognizable symptoms and clinical features of concussion at ringside” (p. 1013). With such an alarming rate of chronic brain injury in amateur boxing, various professionals are trying to resolve the problem. There is an argument between medical …show more content…
Some medical professionals believe that the sport should be banned since it is dangerous and deadly, some scientists and professionals believe that headgear in the sport needs to be upgraded, and other scientists and professionals believe that removing headgear altogether would be make …show more content…
Rudd et al. state that since the prevention of more harmful acts and drugs like gambling, prostitution, and alcohol have failed, a prevention of boxing is not likely. Furthermore, Rudd et al. claim that there is not enough evidence to indicate that boxing is more dangerous compared with other sports. For instance, Rudd et al. provides the global death rates for amateur boxing with combined data from a study done by Zazryn, Finch, and McCroy (2016) and a study done by Lawrence, Hutchison, and Comper (2016), and those death rates are: horseracing (128/100,000 participants a year), mountaineering (51), parachuting (126), motorcycle racing (seven), and amateur boxing (1.39). Therefore, even though amateur boxing has a high rate of concussion, it is less deadly than other sports, and therefore, is unlikely to be banned.
Reason Two
In an experiment to show the effectiveness of headgear, O’Sullivan and Fife (2016) found that none of the boxing headgear tested passed the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) criterion for effective headgear. Furthermore, increasing the effectiveness of headgear is not simple. For instance, O’Sullivan and Fife (2016) state that “Our results display that increases in the thickness of headgear padding did not always correspond with a reduction in head acceleration” (p. 6). Ultimately, current headgear is not efficient in preventing head trauma for amateur athletes.
Reason

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