When Cassius Clay, also known as Mohamed Ali, passed away earlier this year, the world lost a great athlete and human rights defender.

Not many of today’s generation may have heard of this great athlete who rose from very humble beginnings to take the boxing world by storm and remained a heavy favorite among many of the older generation, even as a debilitating illness kept him out of the public eye for many years. .

The sport of boxing is a mix of combat and martial art in which two opponents use techniques to throw punches at each other to win the match. Protective gloves and headgear are part of modern boxing, which is a very popular event in many countries, with competition reaching up to Olympic level.

Like many other combat sports, Boxing has its origins in hand-to-hand combat that has been practiced since ancient times; however, as an organized sport, it was most likely played by the ancient Greeks, to whom we trace the origin of the modern-day Olympics. Reliefs from ancient civilizations such as Babylonian, Mesopotamian, and Sumerian point to evidence of fistfights with protective hand coverings or gloves. The oldest reference to this sport dates back to 668 BC. C. during the ancient Olympics, but it has continually evolved and our current knowledge of boxing is largely connected to the prize fights of the 16th century which took place mainly in Britain but quickly spread to other countries. parts of Europe and the United States.

Also in ancient Rome, boxing was a very popular sport. Opponents wore leather straps wrapped around their fists for protection. In due course, harder metal and leather studs were introduced, giving it a lethal weapon status known as a ‘myrmex’ or limb-piercer. Amphitheaters in Rome often held boxing events that resembled gladiatorial fights, where a fight to the death was often the spectacle enjoyed by most spectators. This progressed to matches in which trained fighters and purchased slaves were forced to fight each other in a circle marked on the ground, the beginning of established rules to mark the sport and put forth the notion of a ‘Boxing Ring’. However, excessive brutality in later years caused boxing to be abolished by the Romans during the gladiatorial period around 393 AD Thereafter, it was only around the 17th century that boxing reappeared in London in pubs and docks by the river, where ‘throw down the glove and pick it up’ largely defined the way boxing matches were conducted.