Boxing is increasingly becoming part of mainstream entertainment. What used to be reserved for Showtime, HBO and pay-per-view is now Saturday night network television.

I am not exactly sure how to categorize fights (pure entertainment, physical competitions, etc.) But one thing I am sure of — boxing is not a sport.

I do not say this because boxing can be brutally physically challenging. I wrestled in college and co-own the CrossFit in Rincon. I do not at all have an aversion to brutal physical competition.

I also do not say this because it is violent. Football and hockey can be violent as well. To wit, are the recent concerns about concussions in football. And when I attend a hockey game, I sometimes feel that I am watching a fight where a hockey game breaks out. Still, they are sports.
The reason I say boxing is not a sport is because the entire point to a boxing match — its goal, if you will — is to inflict harm. That is, “ultimate success” in boxing is to render your opponent unconscious. That is quite different from any sport.

Yes, in football, hockey, soccer and countless other sports, athletes get hurt. Sometimes they even get knocked, but — and this is an important but — those injuries are incidental to the sport, and sport administrators do all they can to minimize such occurrences.
In boxing, that is ultimate success. And that is why boxing, by definition, is not a sport.

Sometimes, we get caught up in the excitement of a competition and perhaps we don’t really think about what we are watching. So, let me be clear: Ultimate success in boxing occurs when one person strikes the head of another person with such force that the brain of the person receiving the punch slams against the inside of his (or her) skull with such force that the brain short-circuits and that athlete is rendered unconscious.

That is not sport.

Sometimes, it is the church that must call things as they are. Sometimes, it is the church that must correct societal wrong-turns. We cannot rely on the culture to monitor itself as cultural values and standards change. The church’s do not.

Again, I am not exactly sure how to categorize fights. And I do not know what can or should be done with boxing. But, I do know this. If we allow it to continue to be passed down as “sport,” we not only do a disservice to our young people and society at large, but we also denigrate sport itself.