De La Hoya Uses Duarte’s KO to Criticize Keyshawn Davis’s Performance
Golden Boy promoter Oscar De La Hoya got a little subtle dig in on Keyshawn … read more
Abdullah Mason vs. Giovanni Cabrera: April 5th Bout
Abdullah Mason (17-0, 15 KOs) will reportedly be fighting Giovanni Cabrera in a 10-round bout … read more
Boxing Results: Duarte Stops Madueno in Slugfest
Oscar Duarte knocked out former WBO Latino champ Miguel ‘Explosivo’ Madueno in the seventh round … read more
Tonight’s Live Results: Duarte vs. Madueno
Light welterweight contender Oscar Duarte (29-2-1, 23 KOs) knocked out replacement opponent Miguel Madueno (31-4, … read more
De La Hoya Claims “Dangerous” Ryan Garcia Will Return Despite Layoff
Promoter Oscar De La Hoya said tonight Ryan Garcia is going to be a “very … read more
Teofimo Lopez’s Next Fight: Barboza Jr. Demands Alcatraz Battle
Arnold Barboza Jr. sent a message to Teofimo Lopez today, telling him he’s got to … read more
Arnold Barboza Jr. Earns Mandatory Challenge for Teofimo Lopez’s WBO Title
Arnold Barboza Jr. (32-0, 11 KOs) is now the mandatory challenger for WBO light welterweight … read more
Boxing Results: Catterall Falls to Barboza!
WBO International light welterweight champion Jack ‘El Gato’ Catterall (30-2, 13 KOs) lost a split … read more
The Cold Shoulder: Why Gervonta Davis Isn’t Biting on Shakur Stevenson’s Bait.
Shakur Stevenson whined today about fan favorites Gervonta Davis and William Zepeda not wanting to … read more
BoMac Calls Berinchyk “Trash” After KO Loss to Keyshawn
Keyshawn Davis’ trainer, Brian ‘BoMac’ McIntyre, says previously unbeaten WBO lightweight champion Denys Berinchyk (19-1, … read more
I've long been bewildered and disturbed by the psychological or moral willingness/ability to throw a serious punch without any physical provocation. Boxing was bad enough as a professional sport, but now there’s (most notably) the barbaric ‘ultimate fighting’. It uses barely covered knuckles and even bare knees for knock-out blows — yet it’s legally selling live-viewing tickets to eagerly excited individuals and commercial-time slots to legitimate business advertisers.
Also disturbing are the only-too-eager viewers, with some girls/women among them. ... In the early 1980s, I’d see from a distance the mostly-male ‘audience’ at the after-classes fights between a pair of almost-always male students, one of whom was needed to initiate the barbaric exchange.
A few years later, during my own troubled-teen years, I observed how by ‘swinging first’ a guy potentially places himself in an unanticipated psychological disadvantage — one favoring the combatant who chooses to patiently wait for his opponent to take the first swing, perhaps even without the fist necessarily connecting.
Just having the combatant swing at him before he’d even given his challenger a physical justification for doing so seemed to instantly create a combined psychological and physical imperative within to react to that swung fist with justified anger. In fact, such testosterone-prone behavior may be reflected in the typically male (perhaps unconsciously strategic) invitation for one’s foe to ‘go ahead and lay one on me,’ while tapping one’s own chin with his forefinger.
Yet, from my observations, it’s a theoretical advantage not widely noticed by both the regular scrapper mindset nor general society. Instead of the commonly expected advantage of an opponent-stunning first blow, the hit only triggers an infuriated response earning the instigator two-or-more-fold returned-payment hard hits. [Could it be an evolutionary instinct ingrained upon the human male psyche preventing us from inadvertently killing off our own procreative species by way of gratuitously instigating deadly violence en masse?]
Regardless, matters should remain peaceful, or at least non-violent, if every party shows the other due respect. And, of course, everyone follows the basic rule: Only a physical first-swing justifies a returned blow.