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 The first evidence of a sport in which two individuals fight using only their fists dates back to the Ancient Egypt and Ancient Greece. Under these circumstances is safe to say that the box, also known as pugilism, is one of the oldest sports in the human history.
Boxing became an Olympic sport in 688 BC at that time being called Pygmachia or Pygme. The ancient boxers trained on primitive punching bags and wore leather straps to protect their hands and wrists from injuries.
After the fall of the Roman Empire and due to the appearance of swords that became very common, boxing lost its popularity as sport. Centuries later, when the swords were no longer handy, the fist fighting sport regains its long lost popularity. Boxing reappeared in written evidences in England in late 17th century. The first documented boxing competition was recorded in 1681 in “London Protestant Mercury”, while the first recorded champion is James Figg, an English fist fighter that started to write the history of boxing in 1719. The first written rules of boxing were created by the heavyweight champion Jack Broughton, in 1743. These rules were the first step towards the modern version of fist fighting.
During the 19th century boxing was considered illegal in Britain and United states, but was the fist fights were very popular in dubious environments attracting individuals with questionable morality. The London Prize Ring rules from 1838 and few decades later the Marquess of Queensberry rules from 1867 shaped this sport into a form very close to the modern pugilism. In the 20th century boxing became a legal sport and several commissions and regulating bodies were created. In the 20th century emerged the most famous boxing champions staring with John L. Sullivan, Jack Dempsey and going all the way to Sugar Ray Robinson, Muhammad Ali, Lennox Lewis and Mike Tyson. |
