The Psychology of Boxing
Boxing is an interesting sport, unlike most sports out there; the objective is to defeat your opponent by injuring him or her. This is in stark contrast to other sports where whenever anyone is injured, play is stopped and the person is tended to. In boxing, the reason for getting into the ring is to make sure your opponent is defeated and cannot continue. This purpose of the sport has a huge psychological effect on the athletes and a lot of them start to have serious mental issues. Numerous suicides have been noted in the sport and a lot of boxers are arrogant, exaggerated versions of normal people. With the intense media coverage and the stress and pressure of the sport it is no wonder a lot of boxers are going off the deep end.
Boxing is an ancient sport; bare knuckle boxing has been around for a long time and even gloved boxing has a long and glorious past. The one thing that is not researched enough is the psychological effect that boxing has on the fighters themselves.
Even though a fair amount of study has taken place into the physical damage that boxing causes to athletes in the ring but research is seriously lacking when it comes to the mental health of boxers. Maybe the physical side of it has been highlighted by the effects to boxing legends such as Muhammad Ali and others.
But the mental side of boxing needs someone who can be shown to have been seriously affected by the sport. It could be a case of social stigmatism against mental issues, with boxers thinking that only crazy people see psychiatrists. But with depression being a very serious problem in the sport today, maybe a few or all boxers should be seeing a sports psychiatrist every few weeks.
Last year the suicide of a prominent up and coming young boxer really brought up the issue of the psychological effects of boxing on a young athlete these days. Darren Sutherland was a promising young boxer who had been a strong amateur fighter and had just turned pro. He had won a bronze medal at the Beijing Olympics and had also won all four of his professional fights. He suffered from serious depression and before long it seems the pressure got too much for him and he hung himself in his London flat.
A lot of critics of boxing use this case as a way to show how damaging and barbaric the sport is; not only does it destroy a person’s health in the long run but it also seriously affects a boxer’s mental health as well. Sutherland had been diagnosed with severe depression and he hung himself an hour before he was to go and have his first meeting with a psychiatrist. It could be the stigma of seeing a doctor for his head that got too much for him to deal with, or it could be that he did not want to be seen as the crazy boxer amongst his peers and opponents. Whatever the reason the world lost a very talented young boxer too soon.
Boxers usually talk about how lonely the sport can be at times; friends seem to always want something from you when you become famous, your fans do not offer support, boxing promoters are only after money and a fighter has to stop and find those people who are really important in his or her life. A lot of boxers build up a support network of family and friends and keep them very close at all times.
With people they can trust it is easier to share their feelings and open up about any problems that are affecting them. A talented boxer who recently turned pro; James DeGale is 24 years old and still lives with his parents. He feels he cannot live anywhere else because of the support and feeling of well being they provide him. Maybe other boxers should think about living at home and getting support from their families.
Until more research is done into the psychological effects of boxing, we will not be able to accurately determine whether boxers are more prone to depression than other athletes. By the very nature of their sport; pounding other human beings senselessly, it would make them a good test case to this effect. Boxing and the mental health of boxers will continue to be in the limelight for a long time to come as more cases like Sutherland’s appear in the media.
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