Very interesting stuff, Ed. I found this article particularly intriguing:
http://ejmas.com/jnc/jncart_svinth2_0100.htmQuote:
In the February 1922 edition of The Ring, Nat Fleischer wrote that before World War I:
It was not easy to speak more than just a kind word for the game [of boxing]. It was classed as brutal, as debasing, followed only by the rough, the uncultured, the vicious. It was no easy task to dispel this vision of boxing, and it is likely that the game would long have felt this unjust stigma but for a concurrence of events that in bold strokes wiped away for all time this stain.
I find many parallels to the current view of MMA.
I found this amusing, too:
Quote:
Ironically, the "he-men" developed by Japanese collegiate boxing were as often Korean as Japanese. The first Korean champions to be mentioned by name in Japan Times appear to have been Ko of Meiji, Ko of Nihon University, and Jo of the Nihon Boxing Club, all of whom won matches in the Meiji Jingu Games of November 1929. It is possible that Jo was Teiken Jo, who was later ranked sixth in the world. [FN3]
The reason was that most Japanese boys who liked combative sports liked judo and kendo better than boxing. [FN4] Furthermore, when the Japanese schoolboys did box, it was often politely. For example, in February 1931 Kari Yado wrote in the Japan Times that during bouts between Japanese students, whenever one "delivered a hard blow, he would apologize by bowing his head slightly or by showing a friendly look in his eyes. There was no knockout in those days. When a boxer began bleeding in his nose, a cry of horror went up [Promoter Yujiro] Watanabe had a hard time explaining to the student boxers that they need not and should not refrain from hitting a groggy opponent. 'You must cultivate the spirit of manliness,' he roared