A Look at Boxing's Roots

Boxing has been one of the enduring sports today. While the London Prize Ring Rules, the first set of rules and regulations ever integrated to the sport, was inked and signed and legalized in 1743 in England, boxing’s goes deeper and farther into the history.

There are traces of fist fighting that might have occurred in ancient Rome, India, Egypt, and Greece. That said, boxing gloves of today are said to have evolved from the ancient equipment of boxing. Early Mediterranean boxers used strips of leather as their choice of boxing gloves. In ancient Greece, boxers, or pugilists, wore gloves with spikes,with fight ending either in a knockout, or a fighter leaving the fight, or sometimes at the casualty of one of the fighters.

The punching bag also originated from the Greeks. In an effort to increase punching power, Greek youth would practice their punches on a korykos, the earliest form of a punching bag. By 668 BC, boxing was included in the Olympics until the sporting event was banned by the Christian emperor Theodosius in 393 AD. But boxing was totally discontinued in 400 AD by Theodoric the Great as he deemed the sport an insult to God since it disfigures God’s image.

Today, modern boxing equipment are designed not only to produce effective results in a fight, but also protects boxers from serious injuries and possible deaths in the ring. Governing bodies of the sport have decreed that boxing equipment should pass safety standards and strict quality control before they be marketed for commercial