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Boxing

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I've been a fan of boxing since adolescence. The first fight I remember was the Floyd Patterson vs. Ingmar Johannsen bout where Patterson defeated the European champ. In those days we listened to championship fights on the radio.

Boxing is considered by many a brutal sport, and with some justification. Yet courage, skill, and athleticism are the paramount virtues of boxing, perhaps to a degree unmatched in any other competition. There are fighters, and there are champions - not always the same thing (many top fighters, even title holders are bums). In these pages I will discuss both.

The history of boxing goes back at least to the bronze age. Homer mentions in the Iliad that Polydeuces (or the Roman Pollux) was a boxing champion. It was an event in the original pan-Hellenic olympic games. In modern times it has evolved from the savage bare-knuckle bouts that lasted til one competitor was vanquished, to the relatively tame version we know today.

In spite of the crooks, hustlers, and general corruption that have been associated with boxing, at it's heart it represents the struggle of the lone competitor to triumph. It tests the courage and character of it's practitioners. I'll use my impressions of several boxers to try to illustrate what I find compelling about the sport.

Mohammad Ali	Mike Tyson	Evander Holyfield