davo: "Then again I suppose we could ban the sport and let these boxers become boxa's on the street and terrorising the neighbourhoods."
The fact that you're giving this as the only alternative you offer for people who have, "..professional athletes who push their body to the extremities and push through more pain than many human beings will experience in their life time, both mentally and physically" shows just how limited your view of human ability is. To direct all this hard work towards bashing others into insanity is, to my mind, a disgrace and should be banned. The world has better uses for "athletes" -whatever they are!
What an awful indictment on a society when it gives youth two choices: be a boxer or be a street terrorists!
Yes, I've been to a gym many times, and the respect shown by one thug to another thug leaves me cold. It would no doubt be the same respect a safe breaker has for his "trainer" or a suicide bomber towards his trainer.
Training them to do a trade, I suppose, is out of the question?
