Leavander Johnson dead
 

Will this spark more debate about safety in boxing, or the acceptability of the sport itself?

Anyway, first and foremost thoughst should be with his family. RIP.

This is very sad.

As for the safety of boxing, I just don't think anything can be done to make punching people in the face safe, unless they don headgear such as in the amatuers. This, of course, will never happen.

As for the acceptability of the sport itself, boxing has been around longer than television, and it isn't going to dissapear, regardless of isolated incidents such as this one. People have also died playing football and hockey and those sports aren't going away either.

As for Leavander Johnson, his pride probably helped with his demise. After absorbing all kinds of punishment and being dominated the entire fight, his corner decided to stop the fight and he told them not to, that he'd been saving his energy for the later rounds and was wearing his opponent down. At the opening of the very next round, he was hit with a barrage of 10 - 15 unanswered power punches before the ref stepped in and stopped the fight.

After the fight he said he was fine, but his brain was already swelling, and by the time he reached the dressing room he couldn't walk right and quickly passed out.

His corner should have threw in the towell, no matter what the fighter told them.

this is a tragic event but in every sport there are risks, and when something like this happens every aspect, every decison is second guessed,

every year in college football theres at least one that dies from heat yet all that is done is more precautions,

things might change a little, corners might be more quick to throw in the towel but i dont see much changing,

what do you expect, its guys punching each other, its not like this wasnt going to happen ever

Eventually boxing will fade away or get extensive safety precautions like headgear and 16oz gloves brought in as in the amateurs. Combat sports in western society have always ebbed and flowed. The sport goes underground, it gets respectable, it gets forced underground again. Some countries in europe have, I believe, banned the sport and it might as well be banned in some states for the lack of fights that occur.

Right now, boxing is pretty weak - I don't think Johnson's death will knock it out, but if things continue - lack of participation at the grassroots level, lack of televised and club fights - it'll go down for the count, at least for a period of time.

The reason boxing died was that it went to pay per view and premium cable channels and the greed and politics of the promoters, not because of deaths or injuries or even lack of stars (there are still stars, although ppv and cable made the stars harder and harder to associate and recognize).

The interesting thing about boxing (more so than any other sport in the USA) was that the champs could be traced to which group was starting to move out of the poverty ranks.

Early you see it was the Irish, then the Jews, then Italians, and then Blacks, and finally Latinos..... there really isn't that push to be a boxer and get out of the ghetto anymore.

Will boxing die? I doubt it, but it has to get back to its roots, small gyms in cities, boxers that work their way up, televised on "free" tv. However, as long as King, Arum and the old school promoters still maintain the reigns and politics of boxing, it will flounder.

Headgear and larger gloves are little more than superficial protection. The purpose of headgear is to prevent cuts and abrasions usually caused by unintentional headbutts, not to prevent brain trauma. It does little to prevent the whiplash and sloshing of the brain that can lead to brain damage; Johns Hopkins University did a study on amateur boxers several years ago and they could measure noticeable mental deficiencies after a year of amateur fighting.

Nonetheless, it's still a voluntary sport that no one is forced into. It's up to each state to decide whether or not to sanction events that involve deliberate brain and spinal damage. Although I like boxing, the comparisions to potential injury in football and hockey are ridiculous. In neither of these sports is the goal to deliberately deal damage to one's opponent. The entire allure of boxing is its brutality and the understanding of the boxer that he may die or be impaired for life. While I would in no way call this heroism, it does make for one of the most exciting sports (and oldest) in the history of man. My only wish is that athletic commissions will stop fighters (i.e. Meldrick Taylor) from fighting regardless of what positive, but incomprehensive, medical exams tell them.

Boxing has ALWAYS ebbed and flowed - or more accurately, combat sports have ebbed and flowed. Nothing is permanent. For a hundred years boxing was underground and highly illegal until the late 1800s, then it exploded and became enormously popular. Now it is declining. MMA, meanwhile, is expanding.

No sport is likely to be a permanent fixture of our social landscape other than perhaps running a foot race.