From a sociological perspective, Americans normally put their money where their hearts are, making football arguably the most lucrative sport in the USA. However, I recently realized that in the year 2014, the most lucrative sporting event based on ticket sales was not Super Bowl XLIX. A boxing match, just two men and a referee in the ring for less than forty minutes, upstaged the Super Bowl! The match was between American Floyd Mayweather and Phillippe politician Manny Pacquiao. According to Badenhausen (2017), Mayweather earned a quarter of a billion dollars for the fight! This peculiar statistics created in me an interest in boxing, a sport that I had heard about a few times, mainly during Summer Olympic Games, but never focused on. Further, although I had seen a few boxing clips in the news and on social media, I had never watched an entire boxing match live or even on TV. It is for this reason that I selected boxing as the focus sports for the instant essay. It includes attending a professional boxing event, then analyzing it from a sociological perspective. By definition, the sociological perspective entails evaluating events based on their social setting to understand how the setting defines the event (Coakley, 2017). Boxing is more of a social event that it is a boxing event as almost every aspect of the game except the actual fighting, is carefully choreographed to live to a specific social expectation.
The Sociological Perspective
Key Concepts
The social perspective is an analytical combination of biography and history. Biography entails what happened to the individual while history entails what was happening around the individual. The social perspective seeks to evaluate how what was happening around the individual acted as a bearing factor to what was happening to the individual (Coakley, 2017). The general idea behind social perspectives developed after the industrial revolution. The said revolution established substantive changes in society. Different segments of the community changed in different ways. It is in trying to understand the rationale behind the changes that sociology developed as an academic discipline.
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The book Coakley (2017) presents an important example of the social perspective dubbed the Messner’s case study. In a football parade, the girls upstage the boys by bringing a Barbie monument while the boys only have a banner. The Barbie and its music evidently attract and impresses the boys and they almost begin dancing. However, because they are boys all out together, none wants to be seemed to be attracted to a Barbie doll so they begin to act up and vociferously protest the presence of the Barbie. Under a different setting, most of the boys would have danced to Barbie music. The protest is the biography, history is a sports parade where boys are expected to act out their machismo. The boys protest, not because they want to but rather because they feel that, they are supposed to feel that way (Coakley, 2017).
Sociological Theories
There are three main types of theories allied to the sociological perspective, being the cultural theories, the interactionist theories, and the structural theories. Cultural theories stem from values, beliefs, norms, and ways of life. Under cultural theories, how people will act in a different set of circumstances, such as a sporting event depends inter alia on the people’s culture combined with the sport’s culture (Coakley, 2017). Standard behavior generally determines the acts and omissions of the individual. Research under this set of theories include narratives associated with sports events and research on cultural issues such as race.
On the other hand, interactionism theories rely on human relationships with one another on a social level. Under this set of theories, people do not just act as they also react to one another. The behavior of the individual is in part a reaction to another individual or set of individuals and the behavior of a group is in part a reaction to another group. In using the Messner’s case study, the boys were happy enough with their award-winning banner while the Barbie definitively elated the girls (Coakley, 2017). The behavior of the two groups, however, changed when they interacted with one another with angst replacing elation. Research for the interactionist perspectives in sports includes how sportspeople develop unique identities, not based on who they are but rather whom they would want the other party to consider them as.
Finally, structural theories focus on social organization and how such organization influences the behavior of the individual or group. Social organization stems from inter alia from power, authority, resources, and opportunities. A good theory is the Conflict theory, credited to Karl Max that argues that resources are always limited, hence humans are in constant conflict (Coakley, 2017). The conflict pits those who affluent against the poor and vice versa. Research examples under the structural theories include the impact of sponsorship money on sports and research on gender parity and equality issues.
The Sporting Event
The sporting event I attended was a professional boxing match that involved three undercard fights and one main event fight. In the main event, two locally celebrated fighters would content for a charitable and relatively lucrative trophy with a positive reputation. The event’s organizers also intended to promote the local boxing in the community and perhaps catapult some of the local stars into the state or even national level.
Before attending the event, I took the time to understand the game of boxing in order to follow the event ably. Boxing is a game that involves two opponents squaring out in a specially made ring. The size of the ring varies exponentially depending on factors such as venue and state rules on the game. The two competitors should match or share congruency in terms of weight, but there are no rules with regard to size or age. Each match is divided into rounds with each round lasting for three minutes. A bell will sound at the beginning and end of each round. The two players contestants will engage one another, trying to hit one another on the head or body with punches but in a circumspectly regulated manner. Each match has several officials, the most important one being the referee, also called the third man in the ring. The referee ensures that both players follow the rules. There is also the timekeeper who signals time using a bell. Finally, three judges score the match, through a formula called the ten-must. The best player in each round gets ten points while the other player gets nine or lower, depending on performance. The player with the most points at the end of the match wins. However, if a player is knocked down an unable to rise or is unable to continue with the match, the other player is declared a winner without reference to the scoring.
The Behavior of All Involved
From a casual evaluation, the four boxing matches were a clear manifestation of extreme belligerence. Each player would match to the ring accompanied by music and at least three individual. The three individuals included a coach, a cut-man and an assistant. All the members of each team looked either somber or angry. The angry look was especially evident in the players who seemed to carry grudges with one another. As opposed to the almost unprofessional belligerence of the respective parties, the officials were absolutely calm and professional. It was interesting to note that in the middle of what seemed like a potential powder keg, the referees, announcers, and other officials were calm and collected, almost as if the chaos did not exist.
It is the near-absolute calm of the officials that pushed me to take a closer look at the obvious angst of the players and their officials. The closer look led to the realization that most of the angst and potential chaos was a carefully orchestrated display both for the benefit of the opponents and for the benefit of the crowd. A careful evaluation of the respective parties revealed that they were afraid. The fear may have been warranted since incidences of major injury or even death are common in the ring. Each player, however, sought to hide their fears by acting in an intimidating manner towards their opponent. The intimidation lasted throughout the matches.
As each much progressed, it was easy to see that the players were under immense pain. However, they would always act as if they are not hurt, even smile at the opponents. The respective support teams would also react when their players got hit badly but they would always hide their shocks circumspectly. The officials continued in their professional demeanors and seemed unfazed by what was happening in the ring. On the other hand, the crowds seemed out for blood. They would loudly cheer the parts where the contestants hit one another incessantly and jeer when the players did not seem to hurt one another enough.
Surprisingly, at the end of the match, the players would lose their belligerent stances while their respective teams would lose their perceived angst. Almost like magic, the teams were no longer angry at one another. Players and their teams exchanged hugs and high fives all over the place. Among the most interesting things, I noticed after the matches were that some of the team members from opposite teams seemed quite cordial with one another and even sat together to watch subsequent matches and chat heartily. It was evident that the obvious belligerence before and during the match was a carefully orchestrated ruse.
Analysis of the Experience
The boxing match and its implications are a pointer to the veracity of the sociological perspectives under the cultural theories. Boxing is merely a sport undertaken for the entertainment of the participants and for pecuniary gain for parties involved. However, boxing is also a celebration of male machismo and the traditional characteristics associated with manhood. Two men meet in the ring and intentionally inflict as much pain as possible to one another by physically assaulting each other. Each man is supposed to endure the pain and exhaustion of the sport better than the other party and if possible knock the other man out. Although boxing is only a sport, each of the two men acts as if he is angry with the other and carrying an obvious intent of causing harm.
In traditional human culture expected men to be strong, resilient and impervious to pain. The statement ‘be a man’ is often used to encourage men to be strong and resilient more so in the face of adversity, including pain. Over and above hitting, boxing is a game about being hit. It is expected of the players to receive blows bravely, as men are traditionally expected to. On the other hand, he was also a cultural expectation for men to be stern and probably harsh and belligerent. Traditionally, men are were expected to fend for their families and defend them. Fear, intimidation, and harshness are integral to an effective defense. It is perhaps to live to these cultural norms that the boxers tried to seem harsh, belligerent and intimidating.
The greatest evidence that the players in the boxing match were acting in accordance with custom lies in the fact that their act ended as soon as the match itself ended. The respective parties who seemed ready for an all-out war at the beginning of the match turn friends immediately after the last bell. Hugs and kind words are exchanged while team members intermingle freely. Clearly, boxing matches are more of cultural festivals than sporting events.
Personal Observations and Conclusion
Based on a careful evaluation of the above the only logical conclusion I can draw from boxing as a sport is that civilization is not primal but rather a forced social state. The modern world has turned into a highly civilized and formal society complete with rules of etiquette and organized politeness. Polite terms such as please, excuse me and sorry are the order of the day. Similarly, political correctness is now a cardinal rule (Schilling, 2015). However, people are willing to pay fortunes to seat in a hall and watch two obviously civilized men and their respective teams act like primitive men form the hunting and gathering age. The fact that men are merely acting is evidenced by the fact that boxing as a sport has very strict rules and regulations. There only very specific places that boxers can hit one another and in very specific ways. The only way a boxer can be successful in the ring is by being as careful as a rocket scientist is and as clinical as a brain surgeon. Contemporaneously, the men also have to act like primal beings who are angry, belligerent and impervious to pain.
It is my informed belief that the nature of boxing as a sport may not say much about the players from a social perspective but it does define modern society. Indeed, boxers are the exact opposite of whom, they pretend to be in the ring. Based on a careful analysis of the sport, I believe that boxers are highly trained, highly disciplined and talented professionals. However, boxing tells a different story about its fans from a social perspective. Boxing fans obviously feel trapped in the modern overly civilized and polite world. They are willing to pay premium sums to be immersed in a world where men act like animals gnarling at one another and pummeling each other almost to death. Most importantly, the fact that boxing has enough fans to enable a boxer to earn in thirty minutes what an American Footballer earns in a lifetime shows reflects a society trapped in civilization but yearning for a more primal life!
References
Badenhausen, K. (2017, July 14). Floyd Mayweather Career Earnings Can Hit $1 Billion With McGregor Fight. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/kurtbadenhausen/2017/07/13/floyd-mayweather-career-earnings-could-hit-1-billion-with-mcgregor-fight/#7790ea7417d2
Coakley, J. J. (2017). Sports in society: Issues and controversies . New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Education.
Schilling, D. (2015, December 14). Has politically correct culture gone too far? Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/news/2015/dec/14/politically-correct-culture-millennials-generation
