Norman Cousins Who Killed Benny Paret

The competitive nature of today's sports associations calls for athletes to be aggressive and forceful , both physically and mentally. This aggressive mentality stays with some athletes off the field, and may explain why so many athletes are committing violent crimes.

American writer Joyce Carol Oates is an expository writer that provides a successful informative piece about the dangers of boxing. This sport has been shadowed by events that influence athletes to prolong their careers with dangerous intuitions. In “The Cruelest Sport,” Oates implements exposition, narration, modes, and tone to effectively persuade her audience of the threats boxing impose.

Throughout world history people have enjoyed watching two men compete in hand to hand combat. Professional boxing made its debut here in America around the turn of the 20th century. Unlike boxing, mixed martial arts is a relatively new sport. Both sports are very technical and require their fighters to be in superb condition. Many fighters train all their life to make it big, but few ever get there. Although both sports are immensely popular, one stands alone as the dominant sport. In this paper I 'll prove that the sport of MMA is more technical, more exciting, and much safer than boxing.

In Joyce Carol Oates’, The Cruelest Sport, she argues that boxing is a cruel and savage sport and that it should not be practiced or even considered a sport. The title of this work The Cruelest sport leads to the questions: Why is it the cruelest sport? Is it because of the physical injuries? Or is it because of the corruption? Oates argues that because the ultimate goal of boxing is to injury someone, it is a barbaric sport. Boxing is the only sport where two men climb into a ring and fight each other like animals. Boxing is harmful because of the injuries, wounds, and deaths that occur during every fight. Victory is usually when one of the fighters is knocked out. Victory is usually achieved when one fighter is unconscious. Boxers fight

Millions of people worldwide take part as spectators to the sport of prize fighting: better known as boxing. In a 1962 essay entitled “Who Killed Benny Paret?” the author, Norman Cousins, writes about the dangers that come with the sport of boxing. He especially talks about a match that resulted in the death of a boxer named Benny Paret. Cousins argues that boxing is just a show of violence and that boxers put themselves in the ring just for the simple purpose of entertaining a crowd. Even though investigations reflect the role of the referee, Paret’s manager, and the doctor’s examinations as the main cause of Paret’s death, Cousins blames Paret’s death on the people that attends boxing matches to see a man get hurt or knockout because he

Mailer opens his essay by introducing Paret to his audience and naming a handful of Paret’s various impressive traits as both a man and a boxer. He boats that “Paret was a Cuban, a proud club fighter who had become welterweight champion because of his unusual ability to take a punch. His style of fighting was to take three punches to the head in order to give back two. At the end of ten rounds, he would still be bouncing, his opponent would have a headache” (Mailer). Mailer seems to have intentionally included this as his opening sentence to draw a positive attitude about Paret out of his audience, thus bringing to light the most cornerstone element of Mailer’s emotional presence throughout the essay, his bias to Paret. This is the precursor to Mailer’s emotionally charged, yet logically sound, account of the events that follow.

MMA is a serious sport that leaves many athletes in critical condition whether it is after a match or later in retirement. They have a great risk of head trauma. The main goal of MMA is to physically harm the opponent. In the end of the match on will be leaving with head injuries. Today researchers are taking serious attention to head trauma. About 900 people in boxing have died because of trauma to the head (“Boxing Regulation”). This does not include people that have died after they have retired, and their cause of death was from early years of boxing.

Boxing, an official sanctioned sport in the early 20th century, is a sport that is known as one of the most violent and physically demanding sports on the earth. Professional boxers that get paid to fight must be in top shape in order to preform at the highest level. Being a professional boxer is a tough life. Boxers train hard for many months leading up to one fight and either win, lose, knock out the opponent or even get knocked out. The sport has been around for centuries, but has most recently taken off over the last 100 years. It is a multibillion dollar industry with fighters taking home hundreds of thousands of dollars if not even millions of dollars for big matches. In his novel Papa Jack, Roberts tells the story of the famous African American boxer Jack Johnson. He details the boxers rise to fame and fortune and his downward spiral that would soon follow. In Papa Jack, Roberts displays life of a professional boxer through firsthand accounts with events that happened during Johnson’s life and shows how boxing not only influenced his life but also how he influenced the African American community.

According to the Centre for Disease Control New Jersey, roughly 1.4 million people sustain traumatic brain injuries in the United States from the result of contact sports. Out of those 1.4 million people, 50,000 die due to the severity of their brain injury.“But brain injury is preventable. Surely given what we already know about the brain and getting at least a glimpse of it’s awesome complexities, we should not be making sport or deliberately trying to do it damage,” says Joan Beck in her article, “Stop Pretending Boxing is a Sport”. Violence in sports should be removed because, it is treacherous to the human body and leads to severe injuries; especially head injuries.

Elliott J. Gorn’s The Manly Art is a unique book that tells readers the origins of boxing in American culture. The book was published in 1986 by Cornell University Press, the book discussed the development of boxing and American society. Gorn takes sport history, a commonly misunderstood and misinterpreted topic and wrote a book that not only was easy to read but allowed readers to gain knowledge on the sport. Gorn says “To understand prize fighting, I have discovered, is necessarily to understand something about nineteenth-century America. Ideology, ethnicity, social class formation, violence, urbanization, gender roles, religious world views, productive relationships, all are a part of sports history in general and boxing in particular.” (Gorn, pg. 12)

Jessica Firger writes “In many circumstances--if not most-- frequent blows to the head have effects that may last a lifetime, a condition known as chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE).” This disease causes a variety of psychiatric, and neurological symptoms including memory loss, depression, anxiety, aggression and dementia (Firger). None of the blows have to result in unconsciousness, in fact, most people diagnosed have never had severe brain trauma or concussions (NFL Concussions Fast). Early studies found a disease in correlation to boxing, a condition called dementia pugilistica, or “punch-drunk syndrome” (Alzheimer’s and Dementia). Studies for dementia pugilistica began in 1929, outlining the symptoms as memory loss, confusion, dizziness, and personality changes. (Alzheimer’s and Dementia).

Rameck and his friends began beating the man” (pg 100 & 102). Another

The documentary, “Unforgivable Blackness” directed by Ken Burns casts light on the extraordinary life story of legendary boxer Jack Johnson. The documentary is about the barriers Jack Johnson had to overcome to satisfy his hunger for becoming the best and living “The American Dream.” Johnson had humble beginnings in Galveston, Texas and it was in those beginnings that glimpses of his bright future were slowly but surely beginning to show. Through out his life, he showed independence, relentlessness, ability to improvise, call attention to himself and get around rules meaning to tie him down. Jack Johnson was a self made man who had the drive to go forward and achieve what he wanted to achieve

The movie Cinderella Man is a biographical film of boxer James J. Braddock that illustrates his struggle through the Great Depression. Movies often exaggerate the suffering of the Great Depression or just gloss over it, but Cinderella Man accurately shows the prevailing attitude of the time through the facial expressions of the actors and the obstacles they overcome. In the film, the people on the street and in the crowd in the boxing arenas appear worried and never smile. The only time that people appear happy is while watching the excitement of a boxing match. This shows how important sporting events like boxing were to a public which had very little to cheer about. In a time when few people had television sets in their houses, listening to a boxing match on the radio let people imagine the fights through their own interpretations in their heads. The movie correctly shows how boxing was a temporary shelter from the suffering for many.

The loser of the battle lost his horse and the armor that he was wearing in the battle. The jousting battlefield is now a soft arena, and what once was a battlefield maneuver, is now a sport that draws paying spectators from all over to see a piece of the past relived.