martial arts that openly admit it's a hobby/sport

Boxing in England in the 18th century was a strange animal far removed from from Boxing today, but in many ways even from native folk wrestling that existed at the same time. There's no firm evidence but it might be an outgrowth from the Guild-Like Corporate Masters of Defence from the previous century's which lost their Monopoly over teaching and eventually lost influence and patronage when foreign masters teaching other weapons including rapier came on the scene. In order to be acknowledged as a Scholar/Free Scholar (and eventually Provost and Master) they had to play the prize at its were

Prize Playing - Wikipedia

A test of arms to show the public and Peers that they weren't full of ....... and were capable in multiple disciplines, though crucially boxing wasn't one of the disciplines.
This was Revived (did it ever stop?......mmmm) later on, but somewhere along the line Rough and Ready Boxing was included along with the traditional English backsword and Staff.

Its interesting that my favorite HEMA swordsman and the treatise I most study from The Scotsman Donald McBane was a contemporary of James Figg and recent scholarship has unearthed he fought on a same occasions (with him/against him?source is unclear. McBane like Figg was a combat master, though remembered for fencing rather than his boxing, But he only started playing the Prize after he came back from his Wars in Flanders. Previously he was a Artillery Sargent/Fencing instructor/Collateral Pimp.

Boxing/Playing the Prize might have been a residual test of strength in British culture for the hardmen and martial artists of their day to prove to their peers and the public that they were worthy of teaching. The smallsword masters from France might have their certifications and patents du Roi to prove their expertise, but Mcbane or Figg to my knowledge had no Paper documents to prove their strength of arms.

 

Boxing in England in the 18th century was a strange animal far removed from from Boxing today, but in many ways even from native folk wrestling that existed at the same time. There's no firm evidence but it might be an outgrowth from the Guild-Like Corporate Masters of Defence from the previous century's which lost their Monopoly over teaching and eventually lost influence and patronage when foreign masters teaching other weapons including rapier came on the scene. In order to be acknowledged as a Scholar/Free Scholar (and eventually Provost and Master) they had to play the prize at its were

Prize Playing - Wikipedia

A test of arms to show the public and Peers that they weren't full of ....... and were capable in multiple disciplines, though crucially boxing wasn't one of the disciplines.
This was Revived (did it ever stop?......mmmm) later on, but somewhere along the line Rough and Ready Boxing was included along with the traditional English backsword and Staff.

Its interesting that my favorite HEMA swordsman and the treatise I most study from The Scotsman Donald McBane was a contemporary of James Figg and recent scholarship has unearthed he fought on a same occasions (with him/against him?source is unclear. McBane like Figg was a combat master, though remembered for fencing rather than his boxing, But he only started playing the Prize after he came back from his Wars in Flanders. Previously he was a Artillery Sargent/Fencing instructor/Collateral Pimp.

Boxing/Playing the Prize might have been a residual test of strength in British culture for the hardmen and martial artists of their day to prove to their peers and the public that they were worthy of teaching. The smallsword masters from France might have their certifications and patents du Roi to prove their expertise, but Mcbane or Figg to my knowledge had no Paper documents to prove their strength of arms.

 

Sorry I haven't had a lot of time for social media last few weeks, running around like a madman. If I get a chance later this week I'll put some time and effort into a proper response when life gets a little more rational. Thanks for the discussion and video. Hope everyone is getting their training fix...I've taken up shadowboxing throughout the house now and was wondering if early humans shadowboxed. That's be something, to see if early man had his own routine and how different it might/could have been, if at all.

Stay safe ya'll.

 

No rush. We're not going anywhere!

 

"low born fighters"? James Figg is the "father of boxing"? And modern Olympic boxing is the "opposite" of boxing in the ancient Olympics? See, the problem I have with your theory is that you seem to be saying the aristocrats perfected the arts of boxing. My position is that it was perfected long before their wallets came about, and not by them particularly. For every marquis, how many dirt poor coaches are there?

 

I'm not sure how closely you read my post, to be honest.

Firstly, you didn't answer which position you are actually arguing. I can only infer that, given you appear to feel boxing was transmitted via people who could not access Ancient Greek literature, you are arguing the first option.

I never said that modern boxing is the opposite of Ancient Greek boxing. I said the opposite of that! Modern boxing has become more like Ancient Greek boxing as it evolved from, as it is known in HEMA; "classical pugilism".

You are right that it wasn't the aristocracy who came up with new rule sets. The Marquis of Queensbury did not invent the Queensbury rules, but he had the social clout to get them implemented. But this again leaves us with the question: did those rules come from Ancient Greece, or did they occur as a natural evolution of a sport that began with very little in common to those ancient olympic rules?

The historical record would indicate the latter. I would ask you again to provide some evidence to refute that. As it is, all you have argued with so far are your feelings.

 

Not this again....

 

It's an interesting thread once you start unravelling it.

Did you know that the guillotine choke was actually invented by centaurs?

 

I have a question, how do centaurs wear their trousers?
A) back two legs,
B) front two legs
C) two pairs, one on each set of legs
D) a large four legged set for both pairs of legs

 

Centaurs don't wear trousers...they just swing free and proud.

 

Which leads me nicely into pregnancy:

Which bit of the centaur gets pregnant, the horse bit, or the human bit?

 

Clearly the horse bit. There aren't any human genitals on the other bit.

 

Excellent, thanks for clearing that up!

Next question, how wierd are my Google adds going to be after I googled searched that image!

 

The historical record ties ancient Greek boxing with modern Olympic boxing as an art form, according to Olympic history. I don't know of any better evidence than that. This is really my only argument, you need to separate "rules" from "art form" before you really get to the truth of it. You said James Figg was the "father of boxing" but in doing so, committed your whole position to 18th century Britain. So defend that argument, if ye dare.

 

I didn't name James Figg "The Father of Boxing", that is how he is commonly known, because he was the first to introduce comprehensive rules in an attempt to save competitors' lives.

James Figg

Anyway, you're evading the questions I asked and deflecting now, so I'll wait for you to nail your colours to the mast, otherwise I'm dancing around vague assertions.

 

You seen the Centaur doing a heel hook?

Metal

 

But he's not commonly known as the father of anything outside of England, so my point stands, your perspective is kind of England centric, isn't it? You are suggesting Americans during the same time weren't already boxing? Nobody I know credits Great Britain with inventing boxing, that's a fact. Not that it didn't produce great boxers but I think saying Englishman was the "father of boxing" is like saying a Brazilian invented jujitsu. Tough sell, sorry.

Your link says right in the first line that "fisticuffs as a sport" started just 40 years prior to Figg's fame. Very recently, historically. That proves my point pretty well. Fisticuffs as a sport wasn't developed by the British in last 300 odd years. It traveled there. In fact there's barely any archeological evidence at all in ancient Britain that I've ever seen. Yet over in the "Near East" and Africa you have all sorts of evidence of boxing for sport, with rules, equipment and so on. And obviously since the human body hasn't changed a lot in 10,000 years, neither has fisticuffs other than technical things like what's allowed, rounds, and other minutiae.

Sorry if you think I'm evading questions, I thought Ive been answering them succintly using images and sources like the encyclopedia, Olympic history, etc. Like I said, maybe it's just a matter of relative POV. From my American POV, boxing is a Greek/Roman/Egyptian/Mesopotamia thing, but for you, it's Mr. Figg the national bare knuckle folk hero, just like the Chinese have their own boxing folk heroes?

Your centaur joke had me cracked up by the way. Well played, sir.

 

Nobody says that Britain invented the concept of "fisticuffs as a sport." But everyone who refers to modern boxing as "Queensberry-rules boxing" is crediting Great Britain with inventing the particular rule set that is modern boxing, since the Marquess of Queensberry was a Scottish nobleman.

Nobody claims that Brazilians invented grappling. But on the other hand, everyone acknowledges that the particular ruleset that is BJJ was developed in Brazil, even though every culture has grappling competitions, and BJJ itself had some roots in Japan.

 

Boxing in the United States - Wikipedia

The Business Of Boxing | AMERICAN HERITAGE

Okay, so boxing did travel to Britain during the Roman occupation (though there is no evidence that the indigenous population practiced it). The Romans most likely got the sport from the Greeks, it's possible that the Greeks and Minoans got the idea from the Egyptians, and just maybe the Egyptians got that idea from the Assyrians/Mesopotamians and others in that region.

Where your argument runs aground is in insisting that the emergence of an entirely different combat sport some 1500 years later must also be related to these ancient games. The only similarity was the use of closed fists, and it was more akin to folk style wrestling than ancient olympic boxing. It's not minutiae, and it's not like there is a scarcity of written records in Britain leading up to the London prize fights.

Just because people come up with a similar idea, doesn't mean those ideas share a common lineage. The Chinese were kicking a ball around for sport thousands of years before the British, and some cultures in pre-colonial Central America also had games involving kicking a ball. To infer that European football and Central American cultures must therefore have a direct lineage to the ancient Chinese would however, be a grave error without first establishing evidence of such.

I get that you're happy to believe your inference to be true, but you must also accept that you won't convince anyone else without some evidence to back it up.