What Is Boxing?

Boxing is a martial art and a combat sport in which two people, male or female, generally of similar weight, fighteach other with their fists. Boxing is supervised by a referee and is typically engaged in during a series of one- to three-minute intervals called rounds. There are three ways to win. Victory is achieved if the opponent is knocked out and unable to get up before the referee counts to ten seconds (a Knockout, or KO) or if the opponent is deemed too injured to continue (a Technical Knockout, or TKO). If there is no stoppage of the fight before an agreed number of rounds, a winner is determined either by the referee's decision or by judges' scorecards.

Fist fighting depicted in Sumerian relief carvings from the 3rd millennium BC, while an ancient Egyptian relief from the 2nd millennium BC depicts both fist-fighters and spectators. Both depictions show bare-fisted contests. In 1927 Dr. E. A. Speiser, an archaeologist, discovered aMesopotamian stone tablet in Baghdad, Iraq depicting two men getting ready for a prize fight. The tablet is believed to be 7,000 years old. The earliest evidence for fist fighting with any kind of gloves can be found on Minoan Crete (c. 1500–900 BC), and on Sardinia, if we consider the boxing statues of Prama mountains (c. 2000–1000 BC)