Boxing
From John L. Sullivan, the last of the bare-knuckle champions and the first of the gloved, to "Iron Mike" Tyson, the world's youngest heavyweight champion, the sport of boxing has been consistently dominated by American fighters since the beginning of the twentieth century. No other sport arouses the degree of fascination and distaste as the "Noble Art," nor has any sport been so consistently vilified. The "Sweet Science" is a world unto itself, rich in tradition, ritual, and argot. Boxing generated a genre of Hollywood film all its own and its implicit drama has been assayed in loving detail by some of America's greatest writers. While nowhere near as popular now as they were before World War II, championship fights still draw celebrities in droves to Las Vegas and Atlantic City for often disappointing matches. Although a prize fight can still muster some of the frisson of boxing's heyday, by late in the century the sport was in a period of decline, its status angrily contested.
Boxing traces its roots back to ancient Egypt, where hieroglyphics dating to 4000 B.C. show Egyptian soldiers engaging in a primitive form of the sport, their hands protected by leather straps. From the Nile Delta, boxing spread along the trade routes, south to Ethiopia and along the Aegean coast up to Cyprus, Crete, and the Greek mainland.
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