Who Invented the Sport of Boxing?

Many people are interested to know who invented the sport of boxing, since it seems to have been around for a long time and is played all over the world.  Boxing is a more organized sport than typical street fighting, and it is in fact much more violent and aggressive than wrestling sports. Boxing is a sport that combines combat sports with martial arts technique, and it is popular worldwide.

Boxing, essentially, just involves an organized form of hand to hand combat. The basic sport - two humans fighting -  has been around for centuries.  In fact, we can see in artwork from the Sumerian period and Ancient Egyptian period that fist fighting has been a trend for a long time. 

The origins of boxing as an organized sport also go back in history. Evidence suggests that boxers were training in Sparta for the sport of sword fighting using boxing techniques; so, at a minimum, the premise behind boxing and its specific athletic techniques goes back quite a long way. Gladiators boxed as well.

Invention of Boxing with Special Equipment

Boxers equipment, such as gloves, dates back to the Minoans and other ancient cultures who used straps, gloves, bands, and other boxing equipment that seems to have been a precursor to what is available today.

Boxing as an Organized Sport

In 1419, James Figg reestablished the sport as a bare-knuckle fighter, and the sport itself took off from there.

The first set of rules were not established until 1743, when boxing as we know it was developed in rules by a man named Jack Broughton.  These rules were designed to keep people safe and to protect fighters despite the violent nature of the sport.

As an organized sport, determining a champion in a boxing match is not very difficult, but there are a few ways in which the referee can pronounce one player a winner.

• You can win by knocking your opponent to the ground, such that he or she cannot get up from the ground for ten seconds from the ground.
• You can win if your opponent is technically knocked out (also explained as TKO) if he or she cannot continue because of a terrible injury, as determined by the referee.
• The referee can determine the winner if the right goes beyond a pre-established number of rounds.

Playing the sport takes a lot of training, as well as a lot of endurance and effort.  Most people who are professional boxers have to take especially good care of their own health, since it can be very dangerous to fight and many boxers suffer extreme damage to the brain, the bones, and even the cardiovascular system.

So, as you can see, if there were one singular inventor of the sport of boxing, he or she would no doubt be famous and wealthy, but the truth is that this game has been around almost forever, perhaps since the beginning of humankind in some form or another, as it seems to be human nature to fight with one another.