Okay, so, I got curious about how many people have actually died from boxing. It’s a pretty rough sport, and you hear about injuries all the time, but I wanted to know the actual numbers. So, I started digging around.
First, I tried some general searches. I just typed in “boxing deaths” and stuff like that. I found some articles talking about the history of boxing deaths and it was kinda crazy. Apparently, since way back in 1890, over 1,876 fighters have died because of injuries they got in the ring! That’s a huge number. I also saw that the first recorded death in South Africa was in 1889, and since then, there have been 55 deaths in professional boxing and 26 in amateur boxing there. That made me think, how does this compare to other places?
I kept going and stumbled upon a report about boxing deaths specifically in Australia. Turns out, between 1832 and 2020, there were 163 boxing-related deaths there. It’s just wild to see these numbers spread out over time and different locations. One place even said that on average, about 7 boxers die each year from injuries in the ring, based on the info they had from 2000 to 2011.
Then, I found this one page that had a list of deaths from boxing injuries, but it stopped in 1995. So, it wasn’t super up-to-date, but still gave me an idea of the scale of this issue.
Deeper into the numbers
I wanted more recent data, so I tried searching for “boxing brain injury deaths 2000-2019”. And I found one mention that said there were 428 deaths during competitions in that time frame. That’s a lot in just twenty years! It really started to sink in how dangerous this sport can be. It also said that, all in all, since the Marquis of Queensberry Rules came into play in 1884, around 500 boxers have died either in the ring or because of boxing.
Then I thought, “Okay, but how many deaths are we talking about overall, in the whole history of boxing?” So I searched for that, and one estimate I found said that between 1890 and 2011, around 1,604 boxers died directly from injuries they got while boxing. That number just blew my mind. Another article put the number at around 1,600 deaths since 1890. And there was even this article about a boxer named Emile Griffith who seriously injured Benny “Kid” Paret in the ring in 1962, and Paret died a few days later. The article said that the whole event was turned into an “opera in jazz” because Griffith’s life was so unusual, being a bisexual Hall of Fame boxer. It’s these kinds of stories that really bring the statistics to life, you know?
Laws and stuff
And here’s where it gets even more interesting. I read that people legally can’t consent to serious harm or death. But then, boxing matches keep happening where people get really hurt or even die, and it seems like nothing happens to the person who caused it. It’s like, what’s up with that?
So, yeah, that’s what I found out about boxing deaths. It’s a lot to take in, and it definitely makes you think twice about the sport. It’s not just numbers; these are real people’s lives. And the fact that this keeps happening, even with all the rules and stuff, it’s just really something to think about.
- Start: General searches for “boxing deaths”.
- Dive Deeper: Looked for specific reports like “boxing brain injury deaths 2000-2019”.
- Historical Context: Found data from as far back as 1890.
- Specific Incidents: Read about individual cases like Emile Griffith and Benny “Kid” Paret.
- Legal Stuff: Considered the laws around consenting to harm.
- Realization: These are real people, not just numbers.
It was a pretty eye-opening experience, just digging into this topic. Makes you appreciate the risks these athletes take every time they step into the ring.
