Kids questions! Why do they call it boxing?

[CBulla]

OK.. so in celebrating Muhammad Ali's birthday today and teaching my boys about him I found that ESPN Classic was showing a rerun of the 1972 title bout with Jurgin Blin. Somewhere near the end of round 2 my ever questioning eldest son asks "Why do they call it boxing?"

OK... sooo "I really have no idea.. let me see what I can learn." NOTHING! Lots of jibberish about boxing day, someother stuff about the history, but nothing about the names origin as boxing.

Now I'm turning it loose on the intellect of ScubaBoard... I dunno.. how about yawl? Why do they call it boxing?

 

[Cacia]

You mean...Causcious Clay.

 

[CAPT HOOK]

You mean...Causcious Clay.

????

 

[scubafool]

I always saw it spelled CASSIUS Clay, but that could have been wrong.

I could be wrong, I was proven wrong today at work. Now I am doubting myself about everything.

Anyway, Cassius (or Cascious) Clay was Muhammad Ali's original name. At least I think so, I could be wrong.

 

[do it easy]

hmmm, good question. I don't have an answer, but I did see this in Wiki under [wiki]Pugilism[/wiki]. It is under Fatalities vs Brain Injury

Fatality rates per 100,000 participants
Horse racing: 128
Sky diving: 123
Hang gliding: 56
Mountaineering: 51
Scuba Diving: 11
Motorcycle racing: 7
College Football: 3
Boxing: 1.3

 

[H2Andy]

from the Pedia:

The first documented account of a bare-knuckle fight in England appeared in 1681 in the London Protestant Mercury, and the first English bare-knuckle champion was James Figg in 1719.[6] This is also the time when the word "boxing" first came to be used.

my guess is that it was called "boxing" from the verb "to box" or slap someone's head
(also "box someone's ears"), which had been around for a while already

 

[Kim]

The third kind of "box," usually heard in "boxing," the activity wherein two overpaid athletes pound away at each other in front of an audience until one of them goes berserk and bites the other, had a completely different source. Unfortunately, no one is precisely sure what it was, though it's fairly certain that it had nothing to do with box-trees. One possibility is that "box" came from an old Germanic root ("boki") which later appeared in Dutch and German words meaning "to strike." Though we think of "box" as a verb, it first showed up in English around 1385 as a noun meaning "blow," now heard almost exclusively in the phrase "a box on the ears."

(http://www.word-detective.com/020798.html)

 

[covediver]

"Cautious Clay" was a derrogatory nickname given to Ali by detractors who though him a coward for not submitting to the draft, others think it referred to elements of his style. "Cassius" was the name given to him by his mother. I still remember listening to the round summaries on the radio when he had his comeback fight against Joe Frasier. My boxing and swim buddy Jerry and I had a bet on the outcome. And while I coach amateur boxing, I could not tell you the origin of the word, sorry. Hard to believe that he is 65 which means I must be...Sorry for wandering off topic, it just brings back some real good memories.