An early contender for that title has got to be that the 2012 London Olympics will witness the debut of Women's Boxing as an Olympic sport.
Boxing (men's) used to be a big sport at the Olympics, and the short bouts were more exciting than long professional title fights. But it was always rife with ridiculous decisions, corruption, brawls between cornermen, and other bad craziness.
Plus, guys pounding each other in the head is just too brutal. I went to some preliminary rounds at the 1984 L.A. Olympics. First, they had flyweight bouts (something like 107 pound max). Those were a lot of fun because these guys couldn't seem to do much serious damage to each other. Then they had heavyweight bouts. One heavyweight caught another one under the chin with an upper cut that lifted the poor bastard clear off the floor. He laid on the canvas for 20 minutes until they strapped him to a cart and wheeled him away. That was the last time I went to a boxing match.
For a host of reasons, you haven't heard much about boxing in recent Olympics. It's a fading sport. But at least it has tradition.
But adding women's boxing to the Olympics at this point in the history of boxing is a little like adding Women's Plunge for Distance to the 2012 Games.
For a host of reasons, you haven't heard much about boxing in recent Olympics. It's a fading sport. But at least it has tradition.
But adding women's boxing to the Olympics at this point in the history of boxing is a little like adding Women's Plunge for Distance to the 2012 Games.
As I wrote in my review of Clint Eastwood's Oscar-winning 2004 women's boxing movie Million Dollar Baby:
In reality, women's boxing is a pseudo-feminist trashsport that briefly flourished in the 1990s when impresario Don King noticed that Mike Tyson fans got some kind of weird kick out of preliminary catfights between battling babes.
Traditionally, society objected to women brawling because (to paraphrase the answer the shady doctor in "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" gives to the question of whether his memory erasure technique can cause brain damage), "Technically speaking, boxing is brain damage."
If a man gets his head caved in during some pointless scrap, well, some other man will just have to step in and do double duty carrying on the species. But, women are the limiting scarce resource in making babies, so each woman lost lowers the overall reproductive capacity.
That kind of proto-sociobiological reasoning is unthinkable today, yet that hasn't brought about a feminist utopia. Instead, men employ gender equality slogans to badger women into doing things guys enjoy.
Still, female fisticuffs have faded recently due to the supply side problem of finding enough low-cost opponents for the handful of women stars. While the number of male palookas who will fight for next to nothing in the hope of becoming Rocky Balboa is ample, managers needing fresh meat for their female champs to bash frequently have to hire hookers and strippers to take dives -- and working girls don't work for free.
"Million Dollar Baby" simply ignores all this and asks you to believe that women's boxing today is a thriving duplicate of the men's fight game of a half century ago, which allows Eastwood to make a 1955-style boxing movie.
And that was 7 years ago that women's boxing was already fading and practically dead in the water. I can't recall reading anything about it in the last several years until hearing that it was going to be in the Olympics this year. Putting women's boxing in the Olympics in 2012 is just Zombie Feminism, following out the logic of gender equality to a reductio ad absurdum.
Is this what Steve Sailer wrote in his 2004 review of "Million Dollar Baby"? I somehow don't remember him, er, you referring directly to pseudo-anthropological breeding theories in an official film review. Mainly because this would make no sense to a general audience unfamiliar with such thought.
ReplyDeleteKnockout rates in men's boxing are pretty much consistent across the various weight classes. In fact, as far as can be determined boxers in sub-heavyweight classes are more likely to suffer serious brain injuries, because they often have to dehydrate themselves to make weight and this can lessen the amount of fluid cushioning the brain.
ReplyDeleteWomen's boxing suffers from a very shallow talent pool in many weight divisions. This is especially true in the heavier divisions, no doubt exacerbated by the fact that most of the weight amounts are the same as for men notwithstanding the fact that women usually weigh less. For example, there are only 19 active boxers in the women's heavyweight division, eight super middleweights (168 pounds) and 17 middleweights (160 pounds).
Peter
This just in... How many sheep can you shear in 8 hours?
ReplyDeletehttp://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-16588903
"NZ body calls for sheep shearing to join Olympic sports"
I've got to admit (from considerable experience) that sheep shearing is incredibly hard. But it should only be in the Olympics if you use 1800's era manual hand shears! (Sorta like tin snips.)
Or they could have an "invent a new sport" competition...
They should just loop the "Girls on Film" video instead.
ReplyDeleteOr is topless mudwrastlin' not feminist-friendly?
"Zombie" is a good descriptor for it. It's like a can't-be-killed version of the Khmer Rouge with a few hundred million more converts to burn through. Anyway, Joan Didion nailed it 4 decades back
ReplyDeleteThink of it as purifying the species; any woman dumb enough to step into a ring is not a loss if she spends the rest of her life drooling, strapped to a gurney and paralyzed from the eyebrows down.
ReplyDeletePour a beer and laugh at them.
Sorry, I think I'd vote for "accidentally stumbling upon your blog" as the dumbest idea of 2012. A straight, white male with terrible opinions on race and feminism isn't exactly a rarity but your ability to churn our terrible articles does make you stand out a bit, I guess.
ReplyDeleteYour own personal ignorance of the recent history of women's boxing is not a good enough reason to discount it, I wouldn't think.
Did you see how the one famous female MMA fighter just tested positive steroids?
ReplyDeleteAlmost all women's sports have the problem of steroids and high testosterone giving a huge advantage to the mannish women, but fighting sports more than most.
My general rule of thumb is, any women's sport not competed in a skirt or swimsuit is not worth watching.
Women's basketball seems to attract an especially ugly, mannish subset of women. Although the baggy outfits might exaggerate their masculinity.
Truly taking gender equality to the logical limit would mean pitting women against men in boxing. Strange how the ultimate feminism would involve men beating women unconscious.
ReplyDeleteBut the sort of women who go into boxing are dumb trash, so let them bash one another. It's better than them having kids.
ReplyDeleteI think the main traditional opposition to women's boxing is (1) it's simply unladylike (2) it messes up women's faces.
A man can be rough-looking and still be attractive, like Charles Bronson. But a woman with a messed up face is just ugly.
On the other hand, the sort of women who go into boxing aren't lookers to begin with, so I say let them bash each other if they want to.
I hate women's boxing and don't care for it, but if trash wanna beat up one another, what can we do about it?
Btw, the worst event in the Olympics is actually synchronized swimming. Or walking, which makes a whole lot of white guys look gay.
But I wonder... what is so feministy about women's boxing? It's sister hitting sister. How does that help women power?
ReplyDeleteBut then, maybe that is the beauty of women's boxing. Just like rap culture turned blacks against other blacks--with all of them calling eachother nwrods--, all women's boxing has done is to pit women against women, often black women against white women. I wonder how white feminists feel about the spectacle of black women beating the crap out of white women? All it proves is the reality of race. Blacks are tougher than whites, and it's as true among women as among men.
You know men's boxing is OVER when some Chinese guy won the heavyweight gold and another Chinese guy won the superheavyweight silver.
ReplyDeleteIt's fallen so much that even blacks abandoned it. How else could some chunky Chinese guy won medals in the upper divisions?
Mixed martial arts seems to have attracted a higher quality of female competitors.
ReplyDelete"Mixed martial arts seems to have attracted a higher quality of female competitors."
ReplyDeleteShould professional wrestling be called 'fixed martial arts'?
dumber and dumber
ReplyDeleteHolly Holm, was recently considered the best female boxer in the world...
ReplyDeletehttp://www.hotboxingnews.com/biography/bioholmholly.htm
She was a rarity as well as she is physically attractive. She had not lost a fight in years until she took a god-awful beating in her last fight, quite ugly...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HE87u6tFjYw
She was the victim of a truly incompetent ref, and give her credit, she is actually talking about a rematch...
Why be so classist? I'd expect better from the UK.
ReplyDeleteWell, maybe in 2016 in Rio we'll have Bum Fights
Too heteronormative? GLBT Boxing in 2020 in Instanbul.
Biased against the Differently Abled? Special Olympics Boxing in 2024 in Berkeley.
Heightist? Midget tossing in 2028 in Toulon.
Hey, if two consenting adults wanna beat the crap out of each other... With 7 billion people on the planet, we can sacrifice a functional uterus or two. Sometimes a girl just really wants to be punched in the face, you know?
ReplyDelete"She was a rarity as well as she is physically attractive."
ReplyDeleteThere have been some attractive women in MMA, such as Kerry Vera and Gina Carano (who is starring in Steven Soderbergh's new movie now). Carano's also an interesting example of hereditary athletic ability: her father was an backup quaterback for the Dallas Cowboys.
"Did you see how the one famous female MMA fighter just tested positive steroids?"
That was Chris "Cyborg" Santos. Gina Carano's only loss was to Santos.
These women's pro boxing seem closer in technique and ability to upper elementary level boys boxing at the Silver Gloves level.
ReplyDeleteWomen's Freestyle Wrestling was added in the 2004 Athens Olympics. It's closer to the level of boy's HS wrestling.
They've also added Womens' Rugby in 2012 and Women's Weightlifting was added in 2000 Sidney. Women's Judo and Taekwando were added in 1992 Barcelona.
" I somehow don't remember him, er, you referring directly to pseudo-anthropological breeding theories in an official film review."
ReplyDeleteThis. So much this.
The evo-psych garbage is tiresome.
Antioco Dascalon said...
ReplyDeleteYou can't have women boxing men. I'd go broke buying popcorn.
Have some decency, sir.
I've read in some Euro newspaper about a month ago that there's controversy about whether the female boxers should compete in skirts or have the choice of skirts or shorts. Has that been settled yet?
ReplyDeletePlease, women's boxing is only the second-dumbest idea just in 2012 Olympics themselves.
ReplyDeleteThe dumbest is holding a pistol competition in London:
Since the pistols used in the pistol shooting events are illegal in England, Scotland and Wales, special dispensation had to be granted by the UK Government to allow certain events to go ahead. --Wikipedia.
Londonderry would be more appropriate:
Northern Ireland... is the only part of the United Kingdom where handguns and semi-automatic firearms are permitted. --ibid.
(Never mind the fact that Celts are statistically more dangerous than Anglo-Saxons throughout the Anglosphere.)
This is absolutely disgraceful. Boxing was illegal in Sweden in 1912, and the Swedes and the IOC (whatever it was called then) had the integrity to be consistent and not hold the boxing competition that year.
I'm not suggesting the London Games drop the sport. Rather, Parliament should repeal the law, which is neither conservative nor liberal. Why would either party in the coalition retain it?
In fact, as far as can be determined boxers in sub-heavyweight classes are more likely to suffer serious brain injuries, because they often have to dehydrate themselves to make weight and this can lessen the amount of fluid cushioning the brain.
ReplyDeleteWell, then it's surely near miraculous that Jake LaMotta is still alive and , at last report,
still lucid at age 90.
If hair pulling was allowed it might be OK. As a spectator sport mind you.
ReplyDeleteI have known lots of women who enjoyed martial arts its somewhat suprising to me but true my wife and all three women I work with have all kick boxed and 3 of them have seriously considered taking fights though none have yet (I have also known and trained with high level amateur and low level pro women fighters). 3 of the 4 are classically feminine and attractive with wide hips, full breasts and feminizied faces.
ReplyDeleteHaving sparred with fair number of women though I have no interest in watching womens MMA or boxing for the same reason i don't watch womens basketball women are not built to excel at those tasks.
A 12-14 year old boy is good match for an adult women most of the time.
I also disliking seeing womens faces get beat up as a womens facial beauty is her most powerful atribute a shame to ruin that for a sport with very little reward or for recreation.
Basically, boxing is two guys bashing the living be-jesus out of each other for public entertainment.
ReplyDeleteAs such it is the spriritual heir of the ancient roman gladiator shows, but 'modern' boxing itself is an 18th century English invention - 'prizefighting' in which poor, yeoman peasant blacksmiths, masons etc beat the shit out of each other in bare knuckled bouts that lasted for hours on end, whilst effete upper class dandies, dressed like Beau Brummel in top hats, cravats and frock coats and with pompous effected speech got a vicarious and perhaps sexual thrill out of seeing rough men do what they couldn't do.
Boxers often died or were left blinded after these unregulated fights.
Reading Steve's disgust over female boxing, perhaps the modern San Fernando American porn industry is the true female equivalent of boxing.Here we have female 'porn stars' put through all manner of 'abnormal acts' for the gratification of the 'fancy'.
For entertaining boxing, you can't beat the 1972 Olympic match between a live-action Dudley Doright named Carroll Morgan and an aging Fatai Ayinla.
ReplyDeleteJust seconds into the fight, all pretense of skill was dropped, and it descended into Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots.
Amazingly, after losing this embarrassment, Ayinla won gold in the All-Africa Games the next year.
Can this fight be viewed anywhere today?
I dunno. I trained at two boxing gyms and there were always several women there, training, sparring. Every amateur event I've been to has at least a few female bouts. They're out there, desperate to prove that they're as tough as the guys. Not many white girls, though. Almost entirely Mexican or black.
ReplyDeleteSomebody called Edgy Gurl asserts: "I somehow don't remember him, er, you referring directly to pseudo-anthropological breeding theories in an official film review."
ReplyDeleteHey, pseudo-anthropological theories is my whole shtick!
Reg Caesar:
ReplyDeleteI used to act out the last 30 seconds of Leon Spinks' gold medal bout in the 1976 Olympics: The Cuban catches Leon against the rope and hits a dozen times in the face until Leon shoves him off. The winded Cuban retreats to the other side of the ring, figuring he'll just lay off until the final bell and win on points. Leon shakes his head until he gets a real mad look on his face, then sprints across the ring and throws an overhand punch to the top of the Cuban's skull, knocking him out.
One heavyweight caught another one under the chin with an upper cut that lifted the poor bastard clear off the floor. He laid on the canvas for 20 minutes until they strapped him to a cart and wheeled him away.
ReplyDeleteI dont believe it! We all know from the movies that is something only petite butt kicking babes do to big guys. Men cant do it, the movies dont lie!
poor, yeoman peasant blacksmiths, masons etc beat the shit out of each other in bare knuckled bouts that lasted for hours on end, whilst effete upper class dandies, dressed like Beau Brummel in top hats, cravats and frock coats and with pompous effected speech got a vicarious and perhaps sexual thrill out of seeing rough men do what they couldn't do.
ReplyDeleteYet Ive seen historical mention of street fights between these rough guys and aristocrats in the same era.
Anon @ 9:26 - since you say he's ignorant, go ahead and correct him on what he got wrong. Calling someone "ignorant" without explanation is lazy.
ReplyDeleteboxing is two guys bashing the living be-jesus out of each other for public entertainment
ReplyDeleteAt its crudest, sure. It can also be two guys who know how to protect themselves and avoid getting hurt trying to win rounds and best each other.
It's amazing that Muhammad Ali just celebrated his 70th birthday. It's like his tremendous original physical vitality is carrying him through debilitation.
I like that the hookers-and-blow-addled IOC vulgarians are claiming women's boxing to be a more legitimate international sport than, say, baseball. That's just a fantastically self-parodic stance.
ReplyDeleteThe Olympics is getting weird about what sports they are including. They made a step forward into becoming a showcase for the world's best athletes by adopting the amateur requirement, then stepped backward by stuffing more and more marginal sports into the event.
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile, three of the four big international team sports, soccer, baseball, and rugby, have little or no presence in the Olympics, instead organizing their own international tournaments. In the case of baseball, this is largely the fault of the IOC.
Who gives a damn about the Olympics anyway? It´s become a multiculti love fest with condoms and drugs galore.
ReplyDeleteWomen in the military is a dumber idea by far. And it has a worse overall effect on society than a couple hundred "ladies" exiting the gene pool blow by blow.
Of course the subjet is totally taboo and mainstream conservatives support female soldiers, the way they slavishly support every liberal cause given enough time (see the Norman Millman thread below).
There is this striving desperateness behind women's athletics that puzzles me. It's like you've commented about affirmative action in ballet: why push and push to get black women in a high-investment, low-return activity for which the overwhelming majority of black women are not physically or temperamentally suited?
ReplyDeleteWhy push women to lose their menstrual cycles in order to exceed at a traditional male athletic activity that even chews up most of the men and spits them out?
Careers: why push women to go into debt for college so they can work for some soul-crushing corporation and lower their lifespans to the same as men?
We are a sick, sick society. That is, we are a feminist society.
"Sorry, I think I'd vote for "accidentally stumbling upon your blog" as the dumbest idea of 2012"
ReplyDeleteWelcome, Anon! Sit down, have a Vodka tonic for courage. Because *if you dare* spend just a few minutes around here, you'll be back.
That was Chris "Cyborg" Santos. Gina Carano's only loss was to Santos.
ReplyDeleteThe first time I ever saw that Santos "chick", I immediately thought to myself, "It's a man, baby!"
you continuously post incorrectly about boxing. it is more popular than ever. americans don't win as much in a bigger, international talent pool, so you see it less and hear about it less in the US.
ReplyDeletei expect to soon hear that "all the good tennis players are in the NFL and NBA." look! there are no americans winning grand slams! that means tennis is a fading sport! nevermind that attendance, prize money, and size of talent pool are all up - US television ratings are down so the sport is "disappearing".
americans don't watch much stuff which doesn't feature americans, so it's no surprise that television ratings are down in the US. such is life in the insular united states, where things don't exist unless they are on american television regularly.
Personally, I thought the Tonya Harding vs Paula Jones bout elevated the dignity of the pugilistic arts.
ReplyDeleteIronically, the introduction of boxing gloves can be blamed for the high rate of brain injuries in boxing, because it made boxers more inclined to go for blows to the head. Back when it was just bare knuckles, it hurt like hell to punch a man in the skull, so boxers typically aimed at softer areas like the abdomen.
ReplyDeleteYou're right on many issues, but you're dead wrong in explaining boxing's decline. It's not a fading sport, too stupid and too brutal for the age. It's simply mismanaged at the professional level by fighters, managers, promoters and governing bodies that combine incredible levels of corruption, incompetence and behavior that benefits individuals at the expense of the sport as a whole.
ReplyDeleteProperly structured, boxing would be the most popular sport in this country and the world by a huge margin because it is so primally appealing. MMF will soon overtake hockey and it's a pathetic, pale substitute. What's the proper structure? Six weight classes. One world champion in each. Each champion must fight four times a year. Opponents are decided by rank, not mutual agreement.
Will this happen? God no. But if it were to happen, if boxing were to come under the complete control of a single, honest governing body, it would dwarf even the NFL.
"Blacks are tougher than whites"
ReplyDeleteYeah, 'cause all those Navy SEALs are just limp-wristed pansies.
To Anonymous at 1/18/12 11:25 PM,
ReplyDeleteWhat does 'this' mean? I have seen it in several blog comments but it seems to make no sense in context.
Thanks.
Dumbest idea for 2012? Did you look at the GOP lineup?
ReplyDelete"One heavyweight caught another one under the chin with an upper cut that lifted the poor bastard clear off the floor. He laid on the canvas for 20 minutes until they strapped him to a cart and wheeled him away. That was the last time I went to a boxing match."
ReplyDeleteProblem with Olympic boxing is the great diversity of talent. In America, it's gonna be tough guy vs tough guy. But if you make it international, it could be huge black Cuban vs some palooka from India. That's not gonna be pretty.
"Sorry, I think I'd vote for "accidentally stumbling upon your blog" as the dumbest idea of 2012. A straight, white male with terrible opinions on race and feminism isn't exactly a rarity but your ability to churn our terrible articles does make you stand out a bit, I guess."
ReplyDeleteThat's why you gotta stick with supersmart and truthful people like Malcolm Gladwell.
Face is the soul of woman. Women who hit one another in the face have no respect for womanhood. But then, I suppose not all women are womanlike.
ReplyDeleteFor entertaining boxing, you can't beat the 1972 Olympic match between a live-action Dudley Doright named Carroll Morgan and an aging Fatai Ayinla.
ReplyDeleteOh man! Not only do I remember that bout, but I occasionally describe it to people, and I was actually half way through composing a comment about it when I scrolled down and found your comment! (This is the first time I've ever heard anyone else mention the match).
I was still in high school at the time, and I didn't remember their names, just that one was white (Swedish I had thought, but Morgan seems to be Canadian) and one Nigerian. But it was hilarious! As I remember it, they were both huge, soft looking, and slow, and they spent three rounds politely taking turns slamming each other in the head.
Even at the time I had a certain amount of racial consciousness, so the fact that one man was black as coal and the other pale as milk struck me as a metaphor for something or other. But mostly it was just hilarious.
I was checking the Amy Chua book on wiki and found a link to this book. Harvard Girl.
ReplyDelete"Our Dumb Little Boy Goes to Cambridge."
ReplyDeleteLmao.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=TP7fzLbdTPE
ReplyDeleteHere's Carroll Morgan's induction into Nova Scotia's sports hall of fame. I doubt these clips include the 1972 Ayinla match. That would belong in Canada's comedy hall!
"Think of it as purifying the species; any woman dumb enough to step into a ring is not a loss if she spends the rest of her life drooling, strapped to a gurney and paralyzed from the eyebrows down."
ReplyDeleteTrue--and this goes for others who spend their lives this way due to their drug overdoses, drunk driving episodes, etc. The money spent on drool cups, adult diapers, etc. could be better spent elsewhere, though.
Pour a beer and laugh at them."
Sorry but no matter how much beer I consumed, I couldn't laugh at them, unless I knew that their care would be funded entirely without governmental assistance.
I have decked more than a couple of men (but never without the expectation of being hit back, even when mine was not the first punch thrown) but I have never hit a woman for the same reason I wouldn't hit a child or elderly person.
By the way, in a rough neighborhood in which beatings were not uncommon, the most messed-up face I ever saw from a beating (I was not present at the event) was on a white woman so stupid she'd come on to a black guy--in a black club. A few of the sisters defended their territory from the poacher who days later looked like a cross between Boris Karloff in Frankenstein and Cameron Mitchell in Nightmare in Wax.
Steve Sailer said, "Somebody called Edgy Gurl asserts: 'I somehow don't remember him, er, you referring directly to pseudo-anthropological breeding theories in an official film review.'
ReplyDeleteHey, pseudo-anthropological theories is my whole shtick!"
I'm surprised you bothered replying to someone who no doubt is still congratulating herself for discovering that "pseudo" does not rhyme with "Play-Doh".
I'm reading the bio of Steve Jobs and a term I keep coming across repeatedly is 'reality distortion field'. Jobs apparently didn't just think different but saw things different and not always for the better.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, RDF seems to affect a lot of social commentators in America who seem to think IQs of all races can be raised sky high if we just think different. But what about the problem that people ARE different?
Btw, the book is hilarious, mostly unintentionally. What a bunch of comic book like characters. In some ways, it's fitting that Jobs was involved with Pixar. His personality was more of a CGI created loon than a real human.
"Putting women's boxing in the Olympics in 2012 is just Zombie Feminism, following out the logic of gender equality to a reductio ad absurdum."
ReplyDeleteIf there were any gender equality, there would be no women at Olympics. There would be no cheering for any girl that was good enough to play on boys' team(and then conveniently shifted to women's division and got a chance to be an 'Olympian')
Same old 'What yours is mine, what's mine is mine.'
One thing about Million Dollar Baby was that it was inadequate treatment in the hospital that did for her in the end.
ReplyDeleteThey're adding Foxy Boxing to the Olympics? I guess they need to fill the slot between the Pillow Fight event and the Wet T-shirt Contest.
ReplyDeleteYup. ...
ReplyDeletelook at the iron man competitions
My dear friend, do you have money? Well then, try an experiment: take $20K you have no use for, go to any local pick-up basketball game, and offer it to one of the black guys if he can win an ironman competition. Then you'll know.
At its best boxing is one of the greatest gladiatorial sports ever. No other combat sport combines subtlety and savagery quite as well. Watching a long fight between great fighters who combine technique and heart -- the great Leonard-Hearns fights or something like that -- is one of the best experiences in sports.
ReplyDeleteWomen just can't physically come close to the technique, artistry and speed men can bring to the table, although I'm sure there aer some with the heart to get punched in the face for a long time.
Truly taking gender equality to the logical limit would mean pitting women against men in boxing. Strange how the ultimate feminism would involve men beating women unconscious.
ReplyDeleteObviously feminists would do away with the 'no shots below the belt' rule, which obviously has disparate impact.
Muhammad Ali's daughter is not unattractive facially, I don't think, but for the life of me, when she sees what boxing did to her dad, I can't understand just how dumb she had to be to step into the ring.
ReplyDeleteYet Ive seen historical mention of street fights between these rough guys and aristocrats in the same era.
ReplyDeleteEnglish New Wave/Punk band had a UK hit in 1979 called Eton Rifles about a real life street fight between lefty protesters and Eton schoolboys.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Eton_Rifles
As the lyric put it: Thought you were smart when you took them on, but you didn't take a peek in their artillery room. All that rugby puts hairs on your chest...
Not that I'm a fan of the posh boys, but they are often not as effem as people think.
Bullshit.
ReplyDeleteAs far as I can see, you are claiming that men's boxing is godawful, but that's fine because it's always been here.
But any problems with women's boxing and oooooooh boy, you go batshit crazy.
Women's boxing is actually, outside of your tiny little world, a fairly big deal. Ireland, which does have some boxing history, is terribly excited about our main prospect, Katie Taylor.
Amateur women's boxing is doing well - so bringing up the professional matches is illogical.
If spectator interest (or the lack thereof) is really what should determine involvement in the Olympics, then you could cut most of the events.
Actually, that last idea might not be such a bad thing...
women are the limiting scarce resource in making babies, so each woman lost lowers the overall reproductive capacity
ReplyDeleteThat was a persuasive argument, back when the primary role of all women was to bear children. But they don't do that any more.
I'd prefer hair-pulling if we have to have women fighting. The first one to take the other down by her hair wins, no scratching of biting allowed.
ReplyDeleteIf they want to be progressive why not eliminate boxing altogether?
ReplyDelete"Sorry, I think I'd vote for "accidentally stumbling upon your blog" as the dumbest idea of 2012. "
ReplyDeleteSure, Anonymous, but accidentaly posting a stupid-ass reply has got to be a really close second. Plus, the year is still young. According to the Mayans, we have 10 months left to reach peak stupidity. BTW, how does one accidentally make a post as asinine as yours? It's a one-in-a-million shot. I'd advise you to play the lottery today. Don't fill up that gas tank; go straight to the Circle-K counter and put it all down.
Hey, Truth made an entire comment without insulting any white people. Actually, you made a whole comment without insulting anybody at all.
ReplyDeleteYou are a better man than me - I am not worthy!
"Hey, pseudo-anthropological theories is my whole shtick!" I chuckle.
ReplyDeleteHere's another bit of pseudo-anthropological, evo-psych spitballing, for what it's worth. The people who are likeliest to get their faces messed up are people like boxers, who choose to engage in violence, who often take up other forms of high-risk behavior and just plain self-destructive habits, and who usually wind up with significant brain damage. So, we might expect a messed-up face to disqualify almost anyone from finding a willing partner for reproduction. Generally speaking, I should think that it would be the case that people with massive facial injuries have less success in finding mates than do similar people with symmetrical facial features.
And yet, this does not seem to apply equally to men and women. In many cultures, men with massively injured faces are more acceptable as fathers than women with similarly injured faces are acceptable as mothers. Maybe there is a reason for this discrimination.
After all, fathers usually have fewer opportunities to hurt their children than do mothers. They may as a class be more likely to take the opportunities they do have, but they have fewer of them. So a man's diet, stress levels, drug intake, fighting, etc, during the months between the moment when he inseminated a woman and the day that woman gives birth will have no direct effect on the health of the child, while all of these aspects of the woman's behavior will have a direct effect.
Moreover, while an impulsive, violent man might very well harm his intimate partner and children, he is also very likely to leave them sooner or later. So if he doesn't actually kill them, his ex-wife and children may well have a chance to rebuild in his absence.
A violent, impulsive woman, on the other hand, will still be subject to all the pressures that push women to be the primary caregivers of their children. As such, she might very well stay with her children throughout their lives, denying them any chance to recover. Furthermore, such a woman is not especially likely to choose a stable, reliable man to be the father of her children. If she abandons her children, then, those children will probably grow up without any parents at all. And since violent, impulsive people are less likely to maintain any interpersonal bond over time than are other people, children abandoned by violent, impulsive mothers may very well end up without any relatives in their lives. Thus isolated, they would face the longest possible odds against a successful adult life.
Steve, you seem inconsistent in your attitude towards sports.
ReplyDeleteI'm sure you've seen lots of physically, and even mentally, crippling football injuries. And yet that hasn't prevented you from appreciating football.
This link claims 325 men have died playing football since 1980.
Boxing is in decline because MMA is much more exciting for the fans, and a better measure of pugilism (which is the point of boxing, isn't it?).
Why the hate for combat sports?
"What does 'this' mean? I have seen it in several blog comments but it seems to make no sense in context."
ReplyDeleteIt's used after quoting a comment (or post, on message boards) to indicate that the person quoting agrees entirely with what's quoted. Basically internet-speak for "ditto".
"My dear friend, do you have money? Well then, try an experiment: take $20K you have no use for, go to any local pick-up basketball game, and offer it to one of the black guys if he can win an ironman competition. Then you'll know."
ReplyDeleteYou think that a random participant in a pick-up basketball game, by virtue of being black, might happen to be a world class endurance athlete?
"I'd prefer hair-pulling if we have to have women fighting. The first one to take the other down by her hair wins, no scratching of biting allowed."
The only sport I can think of where taking someone down by the hair is currently legal is the NFL. If the hair (often, dreadlocks) is long enough that it extends beyond the helmet, a defensive player can grab a ball carrier by the hair and use it to take him to the ground.
Dave, aren't you the guy who denies that blacks are tougher than whites because you once held your own in a fight against a smaller black guy? As Helene implies, any of those black guys who spend their '20's playing ball rather than working are already "world class" athletes. Provide them with the same means that your typical upper middle-class white ironman competitor has for training, and you're likely to have a new champion. Sorry about that, but we're still better at I-banking.
ReplyDeleteThey dropped men's baseball and women's softball from the Olympics and added women's boxing. What's next, cage fighting? Women's wrestling was a stretch. Clearly the people deciding what is an international sport need to get real. Team handball, anyone?
ReplyDeleteThe greek olympics included foot races, long jumping, wrestling, boxing, pankration(basically MMA only more brutal) and chariot racing.
ReplyDeleteWhat the modern olympics needs to do is pair intself down to similar group of primal physical contests, track and field, wrestling, MMA, kick boxing, gymnastics, that should be it and get rid of the winter olympics all together, add Parkour when it has grown a decent competitive structure.
Womens boxing is hardly the stupidest olympic sport, race walking has to be the top, then curling, synchronized swimming, badmiton, the list goes on.
It'd be cool if they had minimumweight or flyweight men vs. heavyweight women boxing at the Olympics.
ReplyDeleteI'd definitely watch that. That could revitalize boxing.
"As Helene implies, any of those black guys who spend their '20's playing ball rather than working are already "world class" athletes."
ReplyDelete"World class"? Doubtful. If they were, they'd be playing professionally somewhere. But more to the point, being good at pickup basketball doesn't mean you can swim 2.4 miles, bike 112 miles, and then run a marathon -- let alone come close to winning an Ironman triathlon.
"a real life street fight between lefty protesters and Eton schoolboys"
ReplyDeleteBack in the 90s the Queen's grandson, Peter Phillips, was out on the lash in a small Scottish town with his school rugby team. In a clash between them and locals, the locals came off worse.
http://www.thefreelibrary.com/PHILLIPS+WAS+TAUNTING+LADS+..CHALLENGING+THEM+TO+FIGHT%3B+SCHOOL+TOFFS...-a061315440
My son's school play soccer against the local state schools, and even against the toughest, roughest sides they hold their own. The rich have some hefty sons - I believe something like a third of the UK Olympics squad are privately educated.
Any claim that curling is a ridiculous addition to the Olympics ignores one fact.
ReplyDeleteIt doesn't require a judge.
I'd say, if scoring is conducted by judges, it is not a sport. It may be athletic, it may be challenging, but it is not a sport (otherwise, ballroom dancing is then added).
Referees to enforce rules (as with boxing) is fine. But judges? That way lies corruption.
Woman's boxing worst Olympic sport ever
ReplyDeleteWoman's beach volleyball best olympic sport ever
Non-beastly women boxing champions:
ReplyDeleteChristina Hammer (middleweight)
Hanna Gabriel (light middleweight)
Anne-Sophie Mathis (welterweight)
Frida Wallberg (super featherweight)
Jelena Mrdjenovich (featherweight)
Peter
"Dave, aren't you the guy who denies that blacks are tougher than whites because you once held your own in a fight against a smaller black guy? "
ReplyDeleteHAHAHAHA; did that really happen?
" Mel Torme said...
ReplyDeleteHey, Truth made an entire comment without insulting any white people. Actually, you made a whole comment without insulting anybody at all."
Yup, and look what happened, nobody paid attention; oh well, back to my normal schtick, NumbNutz.
Northern Ireland... is the only part of the United Kingdom where handguns and semi-automatic firearms are permitted. --ibid.
ReplyDelete(Never mind the fact that Celts are statistically more dangerous than Anglo-Saxons throughout the Anglosphere.)
Gun policy in Northern Ireland is part and parcel of British security policy, wherein the British government (Anglo-Saxons virtually all) armed the Protestant population to do the dirty work British security forces didn't want to accept public responsibility for. It has nothing to do with some mystical Celtic propensity for violence.
Tough, hard, grinding and physically dangerous working class occupations still exist, despite all the blather you read.
ReplyDeleteWho are the scaffolders, the steel erectors, the lumberjacks, the coalminers, the deep sea divers, the deep sea fishermen, the masons, he tunellers etc etc ?
Nary a black face is to be seen.
And despite al he guff you hear 24-7, neither any of those 'hard working' hispanics.
Always white working stiffs - and usually of north European ancestry too.
"My general rule of thumb is, any women's sport not competed in a skirt or swimsuit is not worth watching."
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely. Men watch sports to identify with the men competing. Women's "sports" do not inspire this urge, so they must be atractive to get viewers. That's why field hockey, volleyball, and tennis are much more respectable women's "sports" than basketball, wrestling, or boxing.
Women in hand to hand combat is sick, and unladylike. Society should never sanction such activities.
Perhaps a slightly different point, but have you noticed that all the 'devil-may-care' free hand climbers (who scale skyscrapers) and tight-rope walkers (who walk across lines slung between skyscrapers) are white.
ReplyDelete'Toughness' might mean many things.Of course if might ean pure physical strength or possibly endurance, but perhaps the ultimate edge is given by pure 'couldn't give a f*ck' bravery in whih the individual consciously disregards his own death.
Apart from orientals, whites display this attitude more than other ethnicities, particularly blacks in whom the self-prservation instinct is very strong.The myth of the black super-predator is just that.Basically they kill without compunction because they get away with it.
An important fact many modern blacks ignore is that they mistake white forebearnce with weakness.Ultimately they are playing a very dangerous game.
Anyway if 'blacks' (which I assume means subsaharn west African desnded peoples), were really 'tougher than whites', why, pray, hadn't they in the countless millenia that preceeded present, set themselves up as conquerors and masters of the world?
ReplyDeleteSurely, if they were able to beat the 'whites' in combat (stone age and medeval style with little technology save edged weapons), then the whole mastery of the planet would be theirs.
Surely also they could have whipped the asses of the Arabs also who harried and insulted them for so long.
But it never happened.
Perhaps a slightly different point, but have you noticed that all the 'devil-may-care' free hand climbers (who scale skyscrapers) and tight-rope walkers (who walk across lines slung between skyscrapers) are white.
ReplyDeleteNot that engaging in such dangerous and ultimately pointless activities should be any source of pride.
Peter
Truly taking gender equality to the logical limit would mean pitting women against men in boxing. Strange how the ultimate feminism would involve men beating women unconscious.
ReplyDeletedeserves repost.
"An important fact many modern blacks ignore is that they mistake white forebearnce[sic] with weakness."
ReplyDeleteNo, I think modern blacks have accurately assessed how weak the white elites and their useful idiots are. Their mistake is in thinking all whites are like that. They aren't.
"Ultimately they are playing a very dangerous game."
Yes, particularly since the other side doesn't regard it as a game.
Modern professional sport is primarily entertainment driven by profit. Rules and customs are altered to make sports more media friendly and to socially engineer PC themes (see ESPN).
ReplyDeleteThese particular women boxers are selected in no small part because of their media appeal and ability to draw an audience. The relative lack of manjaws, excessive tatoos, and general unfeminine low-class beasts that common sense says would make for the best shemale boxers is telling.
Who is gonna pay to watch a couple of hideous, all-inked shemale beasts clumsily wail on each other like drunken men? Most people aren't watching women boxing for pure athletic skill, power or grace.
Right now the sport is small enough they can controll who has access. What will happen when/if these nasty low-class inked shemale beasts come to the sport in numbers too great to deny them a shot at becoming the "face" of the sport?
Right now the sport is small enough they can control who has access. What will happen when/if these nasty low-class inked shemale beasts come to the sport in numbers too great to deny them a shot at becoming the "face" of the sport?
ReplyDeleteWhat will happen is any semi-attractive athlete, like the Pride Of Ireland, Katie Taylor, will retire rather than risk debilitating injury at the hands of a true female marauder. And once it's clear no attractive women are going to participate, the fans will disappear.
Of course, the larger question is why the eff are we even having this conversation? Women in hand-to-hand combat with each other--repulsive!
Geoff Curling may not have judges that doesn't make it legitimate sport. The fact it is about as strenous as walk you would take with an elderly uncle disqualifies it.
ReplyDeleteI respect your point about judges though, I was gymnast and left the sport because the impossible subjectivity of judging drove me crazy, I think the way it stretches human ability makes it worth dealing with the subjectivity but fair play if you don't>
Regarding the white vs black toughness debate.
Having worked as a bouncer, and trained extensively in martial arts. They two races possess different strengths but for combat I don't see much overall advantage.
Fighting is about efficiently translating force into your opponent while avoiding or absorbing incoming force effectively.
Take a basic punch, Force equal mass x velocity.
My observation is that white fighters tend to have heavier bone structures relative to muscularity and blacks are the opposite. Essentially white KO fighters tend to rely more on mass they are able to line up their bones effectively to produce a punch with lot of mass behind it, while black ko fighters rely more on muscular speed producing a punch with high velocity but less mass. I notice black fighters tend to produce more flash Ko's early in a fight while white fighters are able to express KO power more consistently even when fatigued.
Whites have better endurance and blacks have better burst if you think endurance is not that important in fighting watch a nick diaz fight.
Longer legs are good for striking but bad for grappling. Blacks have the longest legs, whites are intermediate, asians and central south american mezitizo's are short legged.
White fighters are general more dogged and mentally tough then black fighters
Whites have weaker skin that cuts easier then blacks.
Fighting is actually very mental, you have to quickly recongize patterns figure them out find solutions to them. When I throw my jab this guy keeps landing a counter hook, why is that etc.
I think the white IQ advantage ofter results in better pattern recognition.
The flip side is that black fighters often seem to be a little more innately creatively rhythmically and harder to predict the are less likely to fall into easily figured out patterns.
This is all in reference to single combat. I don't have any real group combat experience the evidence that the seals are almost exclusively white indicates that for modern warfare white characteristics are superior.
ironrailsironweights,
ReplyDeleteThe point I'm trying to make is that the most dangerous, deadly opponent in any type of warfare or conflict is not the biggest or strongest but the bravest and most determined.
In the final analysis, it's very hard to fight against an enemy that completely disregards its own safety.
Conversely, an enemy terrified of death or injury makes easy meat to clean up.
Anon - "Gun policy in Northern Ireland is part and parcel of British security policy, wherein the British government (Anglo-Saxons virtually all) armed the Protestant population to do the dirty work ..."
ReplyDeleteUtter rubbish.
1) The UK government has not been Anglo-dominated for forty years. The last five Labour Party leaders were Welsh, Scottish, Anglo-Scottish, Scottish and Polish Jewish. The current Tory leader is Cameron, not an English name. His predecessor, the great Michael Howard (who reversed the liberal imprisonment policies of the previous 30 years - a real hero of mine), was a Welsh-born Jew of Romanian extraction.
2) Many people were granted gun licenses in NI because they were at risk of being killed by Republicans. Sinn Fein/IRA didn't "just" target serving and retired soldiers, police, judges and court officials, they targeted the people who cleaned the police station floor, the guy delivering bread to an army barracks, plumbers, builders.
Few if any of those weapons were involved in terrorist shootings. Loyalist murder gangs, like the Republicans, used smuggled or stolen guns.
And waht about the aviation pioneers?
ReplyDeleteWhilst not being 'big, strong and tough' in the conventional sense, these men in the late 19th early 20th centuries regularly risked life and limb (there was an exceedingly high risk of the most horrible and terrifying death)to machines that were literally little more than canvass and string.
Without their (voluntarily) human sacrifice there would be no cheap air tickets and holidays in Thailand.
Not that engaging in such dangerous and ultimately pointless activities should be any source of pride.
ReplyDeleteMaybe those guys are driven by the same impulses that drove a Napoleon to conquer Europe but contemporary Western society now channels those impulses into meaningless activity like free hand climbing and base jumping.
Speaking of the Olympics... I noticed your mention of the plunge for distance and read the Wikipedia page, which happened to mention that it only took place at the 1904 Olympics in Saint Louis. If you think anything about the 2012 Olympics will be ridiculous, do realize that nothing can compete with the 1904 Olympics for sheer craziness. Go to the Wikipedia page about those Olympics (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1904_Summer_Olympics) and read gems like this in the write-up of the marathon:
ReplyDelete"A Cuban postman named Felix Carbajal joined the marathon, arriving at the last minute. He had to run in street clothes that he cut around the legs to make them look like shorts. He stopped off in an orchard en route to have a snack on some apples, which turned out to be rotten. The rotten apples caused him to have to lie down and take a nap. Despite falling ill to apples he finished in fourth place."
And that's not even the best part! If you're not rolling on the floor laughing upon finishing that article, you're probably not human.
Yes, the 1904 St. Louis OIympics were just one wacky anecdote after another. David Wallechinsky's big book on the history of the Olympics has all sorts of good stories from St. Louis.
ReplyDeleteWhen Gordon Brown was criticised for having a Scottish dominated cabinet the names of his cabinet members were posted and the majority of them were English (And from public schools to boot!) whether Anglo as you would define them might be slightly different.
ReplyDeleteKatie Taylor does not want to fight in a mini skirt ebcause she does not wear them on nights out. Take that IOC!
ReplyDelete