Boxing

This essay traces the development of boxing from the ancient era (1700 BCE) of individual combat to current times. The gradual modernization of the activity as a regulated sport began in eighteenth-century England. Gambling on the outcome spurred increased regulation, and greater media attention, as well as nationalistic fervor spread the sport throughout the British empire. By the early nineteenth-century transatlantic challenges emanated from fighters in the newly independent United States. A global network ensued by the end of the century that encompassed Asia, Europe, Australia, South Africa, and North America. Boxers from Central and South America joined the international enterprise soon thereafter as the sport was organized by weight classes with recognized individual world champions, including female boxers. Boxing became an Olympic sport in 1904. The essay pays particular attention to the factors of social class, race, and gender that continue to influence the sport.