Violence in Sports
Jennings Bryant, Dolf Zillmann, and Arthur Raney argue that “violence in sports has become a commonplace in present-day society, and signs of the symbiotic nature or sports violence and media are increasingly abundant”. Sports journalists and social commentators are concerned that issue of sports violence has reaches its critical proportions. As quantity of sports violence is escalating, there is a need to distinguish between hostility, aggressiveness and sports. Ironically, it appears that journalists are concerned more about the violence in sports even when the sport itself is not supposed to be violent in essence. For example, football game is not about violence but conflicts among players are very common. It appears that journalists and commentators are more interested in fights among sportsmen rather than the game. Conflicts are analyzed more than games.
While football is not considered to be an aggressive sport but there are still many concerns about violence in it, boxing is purely aggressive in its essence. During the boxing event, two men or women beat each other not because of aggressive attitude or negative opinion they have about each other, but because it is a rule of the game. Unfortunately, in many cases the victory of a one boxer may mean a death of another one. Moreover, injuries acquired during the boxing game have life-long negative consequences. For example, most of the hits lead to head injuries and significant harm to vital organs. Most of the boxers are not healthy people. Bearing these injuries in mind, a question appears: why do people enjoy watching boxing?
The answer to this question has many facets. In the first place, violence in boxing is a rule of the sport. Athletes are expected to hurt each; however, it is not what the spectators enjoy. Fighting has always been a part of human life. Just like thousands of years ago, many of the modern men solve conflicting situations using their fists. A man who managed to defeat his enemy is considered to be strong and masculine. It is important to mention stereotyping in relation to violence in sports. Men are expected to be strong and aggressive while women should be beautiful and caring. Therefore, boxing has its roots in ancient tradition to prove one’s strength, power, and masculinity through fighting. However, this explanation is not sufficient to assess why women participate in boxing as well.
Pleasure and Violence
An average person will dislike watching two men fighting in the supermarket, for example. However, there are millions of people who enjoy watching two men fighting professionally with each other. Not every fan of boxing realizes that hits of professional boxers are very strong. The history of sports is of full of examples when boxers died right after boxing because injuries were incompatible with life. According to Bryant, “the more violent the action in a sports contest, the greater the pleasure that should result from the experience of relief”. Different scholars claimed that people are motivated to enhance their own power and self-esteem by asserting dominance over others. The struggle for interpersonal dominance is the strongest motivator. The strongest degree of dominance can be achieved through direct control by physical domination. Therefore, when people observe two boxers, they see two men fighting for dominance and a status of power.
Furthermore, Bryant argues that violence in sports is linked to the enjoyment of drama. Intensely physical and especially violent play stands for human conflict in its peak; conflict is a heart of high drama. According to Bryant, “increased interpersonal aggression and hostility in sports prove to the spectator that the players are giving it all they have got, are risking their all for the game”. In other words, spectators enjoy violent sports because they believe that athletes are giving everything they have for the contest AND for the spectator. This explanation is especially relevant to boxing because boxers risk their lives. Thus, spectators may find it rather rewarding to observe the injuries of boxers who fought for the pleasure of spectators.
Ratings of the entertainment value are concordant with the degree to which boxing is perceived to be rough and violent. According to empirical studies mentioned by Bryant, “the condition that was rated as most entertaining was that featuring normal play but that was accompanied by commentary that made the play appear to be rougher than it actually was” (263). People enjoy observing violence but they reasons of this enjoyment are still not clear. The explanation provided by Bryant gives useful insight into the violence enjoyment; however, it is not sufficient to explore enjoyment of boxing.
Violence and Fans
According to Eric Dunning, Patrick Murphy, and John Williams, there are two explanations of hooliganism: excessive consumption of alcohol by fans and the occurrence of violent incidents on the field of play. While this explanation is devoted to football hooliganism, it can also be applied to other violent sports, including boxing. Drinking is often held responsible for violent behavior in sports as well as other spheres of life. Furthermore, violence on the field of play can act as a trigger for crowd disorderliness in the sense of providing a stimulus, signal or pretext for hooligan behavior. It violence on the field of play can trigger violence among fans, boxing provides direct stimulus for violence as there are two sportsmen beating each other to unconscious state.
The link between violence and boxing can be explained with the help of ritual aggressive action. Oxford researchers draw the distinction between ‘real’ and ‘proper’ violence. The former consists of physical violence directed towards another person. The latter is symbolic and involves sequence of actions that are aborted and may result in serious injury or death (Dunning, p. 19). In other words, boxing may increase violence among fans because they see an example in front of them. It does not mean, though, that fans go to watch boxing only because they want to become aggressive or violent towards others. Violence is a side effect of boxing. Nevertheless, it is important to add that boxing in its essence is violence as serious physical injuries are part of this sport.