How old is boxing in the west

[ShoulderRoll]

I took a class that covered some early sport history and while there was boxing/wrestling/running in pre-ancient Greek days it was most likely non-competitive and more towards ritual style hype for a king to look good. Then again info from that era is mostly guesswork.

I don't see why it wouldn't be competitive. The Greeks wouldn't be the only ones who went at each other hard.

Wrestling for sure goes way back as a competitive art form, even before ancient Egypt. They mention it in the Epic of Gilgamesh from Mesopotamia.

Some Egyptian boxing or fighting of some sort:

[bklynboy]

Some of the issues raised here have a lot to do with a common problem in Hopology (the formal study of combat). When things existed and what we know of them vis a vis....how these arts were documented and transmitted, has a lot to do with what can be said about the history of an art.

MesoAmerica must have had an incredible set of arts, the Aztecs had to take prisoners en masse to be sacrificed. The Spanish missionaries wrote about how these arts looked: "the one Indian took the other Indian by the hair, with a blood curdling scream he mounted him, grabbing his hair and pantomined what he would do with an obsidian blade." But we have neither text nor practicioner to whom we can see this art....Egypt, Persia, etc. Persians have some wrestling styles but the combat arts of Alexander the Great? these arts have long since been put in the dustbin of history, confined to the lexicon of dead arts.

BKLyn Boy what we call boxing is distinct because it comes from fencing. figg was also a fencer and the art developed a way to settle a duel without a weapon. Then socioeconomics took over and Irish fighters came to rule the roost. This created the crucible under which boxing....fighting with mufflers in an exhibition, not with swords, would become what we know it to be.

What the Greeks practiced was different, the object and derivation was different. Greek combatives were more closely tied to MMA type combat. The Romans while appreciating the subtlety of a gladiator who knew the use of weapons had no real boxing to speak of. Thats my understanding

I've long wondered to what extent fencing contributed to the difference in American and European boxing styles. Fencing (as it became a dueling art as opposed to combat) seems to contribute to the European in-and-out style versus a more lateral movement / giving angles. It's just conjecture on my part.

[bklynboy]

The ancient Greeks used gloves.....the gloves just happened to have sp1kes on them

That would help someone with a quick jab and good D. I might pick Sweet Pea over George Foreman with that. : - )

[StarshipTrooper]

That would help someone with a quick jab and good D. I might pick Sweet Pea over George Foreman with that. : - )

:hahahaha9::hahahaha9:

[McGoorty]

Disagree

Fighting has been going on since they've been people. But boxing ... that's another story. Is bare knuckles boxing? Is London Prize Rules boxing? I would say no to both. Muay Thai is a fighting art - but not boxing. Neither is Aikido.

We need to define boxing. If it's in a ring; set time for a round; fist only (especially knuckles only); and from the waist up; no holding - then we can begin to consider it boxing. Gloves and wraps make a big difference. As far as I understand it started to limit the blood but had the unintended consequence of protecting the hand allowing "boxing" to begin.

I'll let others continue ....

I do not agree, Boxing was different, more realistic as a fight, they did hold, they did throw, I know some of them were eye gougers but the fact remains THAT WAS BOXING back then. Even when Mendoza was fighting he was more like a UFC fighter than a modern boxer. We just have to accept that since James Figg boxing has been through several revolutions. Figgs boxing was unlike the boxing in Mendoza's day just 80 years later because of the Broughton revolution. The game was far different by the 1860's when the great Jem Mace took boxing into a far more scientific era than Mendoza's time, even though Mendoza must be regarded as a scientific fighter as well because he was far more refined than Broughton was (or anyone else up to Mace's day, I regard mendoza as easily the greatest fighter in the first 140 years of British pugilism). ------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------ Then John L Sullivan came along and proved that a less than scientific boxer could still whip any man if he was tough and game enough and he of course fell to Corbett who we regard as a father of our modern sport. The period between 1890 and 1920 was the most revolutionary era yet seen in boxing, we start with Sullivan and finish with Darcy and Dempsey and co. the difference between Sullivan and Darcy is light and day in scientific terms in my opinion, and then Benny Leonard comes along and he seems to be a truly modern style of fighter, the first true out and out master of hitting without getting hit. I could just imagine the look on Mendoza's face if he saw Leonard or a Willie pep in the ring, old Daniel would surely have been in awe of them.

[billeau2]

I do not agree, Boxing was different, more realistic as a fight, they did hold, they did throw, I know some of them were eye gougers but the fact remains THAT WAS BOXING back then. Even when Mendoza was fighting he was more like a UFC fighter than a modern boxer. We just have to accept that since James Figg boxing has been through several revolutions. Figgs boxing was unlike the boxing in Mendoza's day just 80 years later because of the Broughton revolution. The game was far different by the 1860's when the great Jem Mace took boxing into a far more scientific era than Mendoza's time, even though Mendoza must be regarded as a scientific fighter as well because he was far more refined than Broughton was (or anyone else up to Mace's day, I regard mendoza as easily the greatest fighter in the first 140 years of British pugilism). ------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------ Then John L Sullivan came along and proved that a less than scientific boxer could still whip any man if he was tough and game enough and he of course fell to Corbett who we regard as a father of our modern sport. The period between 1890 and 1920 was the most revolutionary era yet seen in boxing, we start with Sullivan and finish with Darcy and Dempsey and co. the difference between Sullivan and Darcy is light and day in scientific terms in my opinion, and then Benny Leonard comes along and he seems to be a truly modern style of fighter, the first true out and out master of hitting without getting hit. I could just imagine the look on Mendoza's face if he saw Leonard or a Willie pep in the ring, old Daniel would surely have been in awe of them.

There is a pattern to this: Boxing has increasingly become more divorced from actual combat. In many respects, including the fighting position now-a-days boxing has become a contest to land big punches. Many of the grappling skills, the inside fighting, the defensive footwork and the punches that depend on a front leg transfer more than the arm....have been lost. The experts can see it, so can the martial artists (sometimes).