Why is clinching even allowed in boxing?

Could you imagine if the NFL allowed offensive linemen to hold when they get beat and called it strategy?

Did anyone answer the OP? So its a dont get knocked out hold on for dear life Tactic . to say a fighter is effective cause they punch And hold ,its the refs allowing certain fighters to do whatever. Imagine the nfl refs all called games different. One call college rules, one the nfl rules and the other street ball rules. And we all complained that the refs didnt call 6 false starts and 3 offsides and two pass intereferences. One ref allows late hits and the other allows one foot to be down to catch a ball Like in college. While the other ref never places the ball in right spot. Boxing has no enforced rules.

I still don't understand why boxers are allowed to grab and hold other boxers. It ruins the sport IMO. It should be a battle of skill, not who can grab the other boxer when they are trouble. If you gave a 1 point deduction for each grab, this stuff would stop. Clinching is a skill. Its pleanty of ways to do it. You clinch when your hurt and you need to survive. Or you clinch when your opponent is trying to overwhelm you. A way to clinch while dirty fighting is to hold with one arm, and pound with the other. And the way to clinch while clean fighting is to use your forarms to pin against your opponent's gloves(not like Floyd when he pins it against his opponent's kneck) and your able to slow down is inside movements. More fighters need to know how to do it, its apart of boxing. Now Bhop punch and clinch, repeat, the whole fight, can be used. Its awful to watch but it can get the job done. All of them arent dirty, but some of them are illegal. Not illegal enough to warrant a point deduction, but illegal enough to make the ref break it up. But fighters would not get knocked out as often if they learned more veteran tactics. Taking a knee is a lost skill as well. Some fighters dont even know how to take a knee. Imagine if Floyd got knocked down. He never been dropped before so if he stood up on shaky legs the fight might get stopped. So we dont even know if he has that skill as well. Learn about boxing bro.

Its called the slick boxing style. Mayweather, Ward, hopkins etc they all do it. It takes skills. But Klitschko is on another level when it comes to grabbing. Whole fight he just grabbed... throwing some jabs...

it's not that bad if it's not abused the fuk out of

clinching is for when you get rocked nd even in some of those instances some fighter dont do it (bradley, sergio) its def not suppose to come after almost every jab nd combo thrown (clinchko, i mean klitschko) if khan gets deducted for "pushing" (vs peterson) why the fcuk is wladimir able to clinch more than punches thrown. im mad confused, maddd confused

So guys like Wlad and Khan can have some sort of defense for their opponents trying throw punches at them.