Looks like there may be some fighting going on outside the ring too: [URL="http://touch.latimes.com/#section/-1/article/p2p-83467477/"]Class-action lawsuit filed against Manny Pacquiao, Top Rank[/URL]:[quote]Manny Pacquiao’s attorney said Tuesday he intends to move to dismiss what he describes as a “frivolous” class-action lawsuit filed against the boxer and his primary handlers in Nevada by two Las Vegas residents.

As first reported by ESPN’s Darren Rovell, the lawsuit seeks in excess of $5 million from Pacquiao, his manager Michael Koncz and his promoter, Top Rank Inc., for allegedly fraudulently covering up Pacquiao’s right shoulder injury before his Saturday night loss to Floyd Mayweather Jr.[/quote]

[QUOTE=only_human;401798]Well it's good to know that attacking a shock absorbing enclosure with enough force to bruise the protected contents... [/QUOTE]

It took me a second reading to realize this was about the head, rather than the torso/body shots.

[QUOTE=only_human;401798]Well it's good to know that attacking a shock absorbing enclosure with enough force to bruise the protected contents is not the only way to win. But I never enjoyed The Three Stooge's implied eye poking and nose wrenching or the gamut of implied attacks of television marketed wrestling entertainment. Everyone has their own worldview and real or implied harm is not an attraction for me. I stopped trying to see what other people were enjoying in it when that one boxer bit off the other boxer's ear.[/QUOTE]

Ah yes, the infamous Tyson/Holyfield 'love bite' - ugly as the incident was, head injuries are more worrisome, being far more than cosmetic.

Like you say, to each his own - but I wonder if most people who claim to find such stuff abhorrent have ever really considered their views, in the context of the sanitized pretences of 'modern, developed' societies. Those who rail against 'violent bloodsports' but have ever cheered on - or silently approved of, or secretly thrilled to - footage on the evening news, or dramatization in pop culture, of 'their guy' offing or beating pulpy 'the evildoers' or 'their side' committing mass mechanized violence against 'the others', or their corporate/financial upper crust doing similar but even-more-standoffish mass violence against defenseless victim populations ... those folks are no less bloody-minded, they are just more hypocritical about that aspect of their nature.

At least in e.g. boxing both combatants are roughly equally matched in terms of size and - this is pretty much the definition of 'bout worth watching' - skill. Compared to contemporary mass-casualty bloodsports like modern warfare or global klepto-capitalism - which we 'see' only once they have been suitably sanitized, rationalized by the political-leadership/oligarch classes and their mainstream media lapdogs, propagandized beyond all resemblance to the underlying reality, and are nearly always at the expense of some more-or-less-defenseless 'other', I find the less-sanitized violence of a boxing match refreshingly honest. Which is the grosser form of violence? A couple guys beating on each other in a squared circle, or the 0.01% bombing, 'policing' or mass-starving entire populations into submission on behalf of delusions-of-empire or their corporate and financial elites?

[Cue "see the violence inherent in the system - help, help, I'm being repressed!" skit.]

As for "but, but ... it's exploitation of the underclasses" arguments - I expect the 'both guys get to throw punches on equal terms' aspect is one reason such sports have long been especially appealing to said underclasses, whose chief exploiters are invariably of the above faceless at-a-distance variety, whether it be governments sending the underclasses to fight their wars for them, or banks robbing the underclasses by way of predatory finance and state-approved mass fraud. The recent flashpoint of Ferguson, MO was a town whose operations and generous public 'servant' pay and pensions) were overwhelmingly financed by ripping off a thoroughly violently-oppressed black populace. In addition to the much-needed big-time political reform and financial redress, I would consider pitting 10 of "Ferguson's finest" against 10 of the folks they made a living preying on - on fair sporting terms of size, age and skill, under standard boxing rules - a peculiarly apt addition form of justice. (Both sides would of course be subject to mandatory PED testing - I suspect many of the cops would fail).

[QUOTE=ewmayer;401815], I find the less-sanitized violence of a boxing match refreshingly honest. [/QUOTE]
That is a strong point in its favor.

The the honesty of directly paying for what one admits to be paying for seems to more prevalent in prostitution than in politics. A recent improvement in sports such as football is improved tallying of the physical toll. I wonder if more transparent and open gambling would lead to better evaluations of consequential effects and costs as part of the handicapping process.