Boxing has been classically known as the gentlemen’s sport, which may be hard to believe when it involves two blokes entering a ring to bash the living daylights out of each other. However, that’s not the case nowadays with the popularity of women’s boxing on the rise.
Women’s boxing has been around for many years now, but it’s only in the past few years that people have been paying it some serious attention. We can thank the likes of Katie Taylor, Amanda Serrano and Savannah Marshall for helping to give the sport a much-needed boost, as they have put on some terrific displays over the years.
In fact, it was Taylor vs Serrano earlier this year that made history in women’s boxing for two reasons. It was the first female boxing match to headline the main event on a card at Maddison Square Gardens in New York, and it also ended up being the highest-paid fight in the history of women’s boxing, with each fighter earning over $1,000,000.
On the night it would be Taylor who came out on top against one of the best pound-for-pound fighters there have been in women’s boxing. You can catch the highlights of that fight below:
Serrano actually wanted to break more records with their historic fight, arguing they should “do it like the men” and have longer rounds, and more of them. That’s because there are differences between men’s and women’s boxing. Traditionally, men have 10-12 round fights lasting three minutes each, whereas women’s boxing consists of ten, two-minute rounds. That’s a difference of 16 minutes overall for matches that go the distance.
But we’re glad that Taylor didn’t agree to the rule changes because we don’t think they needed to. And we’ll allude to why that is in these three reasons we believe that women’s boxing is more entertaining than men’s.
Women’s Boxing is more intense
When you watch a men’s boxing match, unless you have someone the likes of Mike Tyson who was a pit bull back in the day, racing out of his corner to throw punches to knock his opponent out as quickly as possible, fights are dragged out. Especially in heavyweight divisions.
Men have more time, and so you see more male boxers taking their time to settle into fights. They just float around the ring, throwing the occasional jab to feel their opponent, but never really committing. Things don’t get going until one fighter becomes desperate at the end and starts throwing windmill punches like Freddie Flintoff in his boxing debut. Most of the time by this point fighters become more tired as they’ve been doing little more than running around the ring.
In women’s boxing, they don’t have the time to be able to do that, because as mentioned, their fights last 16 minutes less. This means that you tend to get more women coming out of the traps and getting stuck in right away. They know they’re limited on time, and so many female boxers will come out with the intention of taking the fight to their partners. Therefore making it a more intense experience.
We’re not just seeing rematch after rematch
It’s common that if a fighter loses a belt, there is a rematch clause in their contract to have a chance at winning it back. I understand that because no fighter wants to lose, but a silly mistake can sometimes cost them, and it’s a kind of security they could hold on to their title by winning it back at a later date.
However, men’s boxing has just become this facade in which it’s all about money, and the big fighters keep fighting the same people, time and time again. Sure, sometimes it’s a great spectacle, I mean Muhammad Ali vs Joe Frazier III was one of the best fights ever witnessed. But that was back then, this is now. Nowadays it feels like we just keep seeing the same people fighting constantly, and it stops fighters who are trying to climb the ranks and make a name for themselves for achieving success.
In women’s boxing though, it is much less common. There is one rematch coming up soon we are looking forward to incredibly, which is Savannah Marshall vs Claressa Shields, but it’s not a real rematch in the sense they have never fought each other professionally. They only fought at an amateur level where Marshall was the only boxer to stop Shields in her career. The two will now meet in London on September 10th in a middleweight unification fight for all the titles.
It’s more credible
Ok, so you still get trash-talking in women’s boxing, or kind of, it’s been painful to watch Shields string sentences together in the build-up to her inevitable fight with Marshall. But there is less shithousery and messing around, no one comes out of it with everyone thinking, “what an absolute plonker”, except again in the case of Claressa Shields.
When it comes to men’s boxing, you get this whole bravado they put on, and they begin acting like kids in a playground, throwing insults, pretending to have full-blown arguments, and making a showcase of themselves by fighting YouTube stars. The sport has actually lost a lot of credibility to this.
But in the women’s game, bar a few words slung around here and there about how one fighter will put the other on the floor, all the business is done in the ring. There is no one singing American Pie (although Tyson Fury did a lovely job), there is no hurling of insults belittling family members and loved ones, and there are no stunts to fight non-professionals for a fight that is clearly fixed for a big pay packet.
Closing thoughts
So, there you have it, three reasons why women’s boxing is much more entertaining than watching two sweaty men tire each other out in the ring by walking in circles. If you agree or disagree, let us know in the comments below, we’d love to get some more opinions on what other people’s thoughts are.
You can find more Boxing Articles on our website. This piece was written and provided by WriteyWrite.com.
Completely agree, mens boxing has become a laughing stock. The likes of Jake Paul just waltzing in thinking he deserves title shots when there are a queue of people before him. Not to mention all the rubbish around Joshua Vs Fury. They’ve been going on about it for years, but neither committing. Just gets dragged out far too long and then you lose interest.
I completely agree, women’s boxing is decisively more entertaining than men’s, as you alluded the time structure is more shorter making fights more intense: the women are absolute warriors and are tougher and rougher how they fight, and nearly every major card the women’s fight is easily fight of ths night, comprehensively up staging the men. When I thibk of boxing, I automatically think of female fighters, so Boxing is a women’s sport now in my eyes,
Really appreciate the two of you taking the time to comment. Women’s boxing is on the rise, and we can only hope that it continues on that upward trend so these women can earn the money they deserve for putting on a better show in the ring.