Sad News...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-nottinghamshire-27991351

No doubt the anti-boxing lobby will be out in full force after this terrible story

I'll be honest I have mixed thoughts about white collar Boxing, Davey........

Great that it makes money for charity and raises awareness for certain things....On the other side people who aren't hardened to the sport are open to injury........

Let's hope this isn't a harbinger

Terrible news

Not a fan of white collar boxing leave it to the pro's.

Like the old saying ''You don't play boxing''

this was actually a 'semi-pro' fight, not white collar, two different things, white collar is between two complete novices with headguards and big gloves whilst semi pro is somewhere between professional and amateur using small gloves and no head guards.

paul Smith jr was tweeting about it last night saying it was only a matter of time as he quiestioned the medical facilites etc at such events

Reading into it this wasn't 'white collar' boxing at all, it wasn't some suit in a charity event, it was for properly trained but unlicenced boxers.

I regularly go to 'semi-pro' events and there are dangers a for a number of reasons (Note these are my own experiences of the events I have been to only):

- Medical staff should be on hand (normally part of the venue's own insurance policy), however I have been to an event where there was none and someone was badly KO'd and no one knew what to do.

- The events I go to have plenty of mis-matches where someone experienced looking to feed his ego fights a pure novice and takes beating with 10oz gloves and no head guard.

- There are no medicals before the bouts. My friends have fought and they very quickly press down on your knuckles to check not broken and look you up and down and that's it.

- Semi-pro is merely a way of people running their own shows with no governing body i.e. they slip between Pro and Amateur controls.

Having done a white collar event my experience of it was top class. The training was excellent (one of the trainers was Paddy Gallagher, commonwealth gold medallist who was on welterwights prize fighter this year). At the event itself, we were given medicals before and there was medical staff at ringside. The matchmaking was fairly good too as most were very competitive and only one knockdown in the fights. Overall a great experience. Sadly, these semi-pro shows seems to be run with even less professionalism than white boxing and I feel should be governed by the BBBC or else made banned. Taking shots with the small gloves and no headguards is crazy without the proper checks in place and medical staff at the event.

But was the a proper 'white collar' boxing event, as opposed to essentially unlicensed semi-pro boxing??

My mate did a proper white collar event, at York Hall no less, and it was very well run with big gloves, headguards, ringside paramedics etc.