Interpersonal Violence in Sport

The history of interpersonal violence in sport has followed a rather different trajectory from that of violence between animals. Whereas the West has diverged sharply from other parts of the globe since 1800 with an ever more successful animal protection movement, no such divergence is evident with respect to human combat sports.

The trend here has been towards ever-greater regulation rather than prohibition, and the move towards tighter regulation has been shared in Western and non-Western nations alike.

Men have made sport out of fighting with each other since the beginning of time, and this tradition remained firmly in place in 1800.^{^[361]} Indeed, most governments have traditionally looked favourably towards their indigenous fighting sports and customs, regarding them as a means of encouraging strength, courage and manly vigour, as the foundation of a strong, fighting nation. Enthusiasm for human combat sports has hardly waned over the past two centuries. Admittedly, some abolitionist pressure emerged in parts of the West in the twentieth century, yet this never gained the strength and momentum of the animal protection arguments. When it comes to violence in sport, reformers have sought to control and contain that violence, rather than to eliminate it.

In the West, much of the impetus for limiting the degree of violence permissible in hand-to-hand combat emanated, once again, from Britain. Whilst it is difficult to reconstruct exactly how bare-knuckle fighting was conducted in Europe at this time, it is clear that high levels of violence were tolerated. A manual from early eighteenth-century Britain provided instruction for techniques such as head-butting, punching, eye-gouging and choking.^{^[362]} It is certainly the case that organised prize-fights had an unfortunate tendency to end in death, resulting in unwelcome manslaughter charges for the victorious fighter.

It was undoubtedly this which provided the spur for reform of the sport’s rules. The first set of boxing rules were introduced by the champion fighter Jack Broughton in 1743, and known as Broughton’s rules. Broughton also encouraged the use of ‘mufflers’, a form of padded glove, though their use remained optional well into the nineteenth century. Broughton’s rules were revised and consolidated as the London Prize Ring Rules in 1838, which were in turn superseded by the Queensbury Rules in 1867. These mandated the use of gloves and form the basis of the sport of boxing as it is played today. In the USA, one advocate of new boxing rules argued that they encouraged fighting which was ‘fairer and more harmless’, and they certainly did lead to a decline in the frequency with which prize-fights ended in death.^{^[363]} What we find in the case of hand- to-hand combat, then, is not an attempt to eliminate violence from sport, but a move towards greater regulation around the circumstances in which men fight.

Once this transition had occurred, boxing was able to take its place in Western society. It was introduced to the Olympics in 1904 and has been contested at every set of games since, with the exception of the 1912 Olympics in Sweden (the Swedish government banned the sport at that time).^{^[364]} These developments have also opened a space for women to take part in the sport. Women participated in the sport informally throughout the twentieth century but only began to assume a formal presence when national amateur boxing associations began to admit women.^{^[365]} Indeed it was Sweden which kicked off this trend, with the Swedish Amateur Boxing Association sanctioning events for women in 1988. Through the 1990s, the USA and most European nations followed suit and women's boxing was included in the Olympics just outside the timeframe of this volume - in 2012.

Elsewhere in the world, human combat sports inevitably took a highly diverse form, with not only each nation nurturing its own local customs, but considerable variety between one region and the next.

Yet for all this diversity, the same trend towards standardisation is evident. Take the example of Japan. At the turn of the nineteenth century, Japan was the home of numerous distinct fighting traditions - martial arts such as ju-jitsu, karate and aikido; sword-fighting traditions such as kendo and naginata; and wrestling. Most of these sports claimed heritage back to at least the fifteenth century, and many considerably earlier than that. All the Japanese martial arts and wrestling traditions contained high levels of violence and had held a central place in the culture of the ancient samurai, or warrior class. Although they had ceased to play an important role in military preparedness by the end of the eighteenth century, they were nonetheless still highly esteemed for the encouragement they gave to a man's self-control and fighting spirit.

Despite their long histories, most modern Japanese martial arts are in reality only loosely related to their earlier forms. Sumo wrestling, for example, is all that remains of a once far wider set of wrestling customs. Medieval sources reveal wrestling contests that were performed as part of religious rites, or as a spectator event for aristocratic patrons, or for financial gain. Bouts were fought according to locally determined custom, and although they did not ordinarily end with the death of one or other opponent, fights to the death were practised in some contexts. The same variety was evident in all the Japanese martial arts, with each practised in numerous different formats and contexts, according to local custom rather than standardised rules.^{^[366]}

Wrestling was the first Japanese combat sport to undergo standardisation, a process which began unusually early in this instance. The tradition of tsuji- zumo, or ‘street-corner' wrestling, had started to attract the attention of the ruling class in the mid seventeenth century. Street corner wrestling, as its name implies, took place out of doors, often accompanied by hawkers, jugglers, and theatrical and freak shows.

It encouraged crowds to gather and gamble on the outcome, and, in the eyes of the authorities, posed a threat to the social order. The Tokugawa government passed edicts banning it around the middle of the century, but as these proved only partially successful government officials began instructing wrestling organisers to regulate their fights instead. One of the most significant outcomes of these negotiations was the agreement to hold fights within a defined space, giving rise to the dohyo - an arena with a clearly defined, circular border of rice-straw bales - which is still employed today. In addition, certain rules for sumo wrestling were formalised - the disallowing of hair-pulling, eye-gouging and blows with closed fists. Referees were introduced to ensure they were followed. Further regulation followed in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Together, these reforms sharply reduced the risk of sumo wrestlers experiencing serious physical harm or dying in the ring. And although this had certainly been far from the reformers' intentions, the introduction of a formal set of rules also gave rise to a nationwide tournament circuit as wrestlers from across Japan became familiar with a standard set of procedures. As a result, sumo wrestling emerged from its medieval origins into a modern spectator sport, fit for Japan's growing urban centres

A similar process of standardisation transformed the complex patchwork of martial arts and sword fighting that had existed in Japan in the early nineteenth century. Swords, for example, had had a significant presence on the medieval battlefield, but with no major wars during the Tokugawa period (1603-1868), sword-fighting had evolved from a form of military training into a spectator sport. Fights were highly choreographed so that fighters might strike their opponent without fear of injuring or killing them. In the eighteenth century, the traditional metal swords were replaced with bamboo so as to allow for a more authentic, full-contact combat, yet despite this swordfighting techniques, along with other traditional martial arts, fell into decline at the start of the Meiji period in the 1860s.

The creation of a new government in 1868 - the Meiji, or ‘Enlightened Rule’ - marked the beginning of a new era in Japanese history. Successive leaders actively sought to accelerate industrialisation, to modernise, to catch up with the West. In such an environment, the nation's ancient martial arts increasingly appeared to be outdated relics of the past.

All of Japan's ancient combat sports, however, were unexpected beneficiaries of the rise of nationalist fervour that swept the nation in the final quarter of the nineteenth century. The Sino-Japanese War of 1894-5 and the nationalism it helped to foster prompted a reappraisal of traditional martial culture. The 1890s saw a sharp increase in the number of students joining martial arts associations and the emergence of a number of martial arts organisations active in both codifying the sports and lobbying for them. Kendo was codified into its modern form in the 1890s; in the same decade naginata was revived as a suitable physical recreation for girls; it was codified with the creation of a national centre in 1934. Meanwhile, older ju-jitsu techniques were reconfigured as Kodokan Judo by Kano Jiguro in the 1880s. Kano created a training school and a governing body for his new martial art, introduced a system of belts to rank competitors, and established a point system and time-limits for matches. In each of these sports, codification helped to restrict the expression of violence in sport. It did not remove violence altogether, but did sharply limit the degree of harm that combatants could cause their opponents.

Chinese martial arts evade simple categorisation. There are dozens of unique fighting styles and training methods, inspired by different philosophies and religions, each with its origins in distinct periods of Chinese history and regions of the country. Yet despite the great variety of martial arts in China, these too have all undergone a recognisable process of standardisation. The process here was delayed until the twentieth century and was powerfully shaped by China's own unique social and political context.

In the early twentieth century, one martial art school after another established its own national association, produced its training manual, and set about organising its own system of national examinations and competitions. The trend towards standardisation was further accelerated in the 1950s with the creation of the People's Republic of China. The PRC, whilst enthusiastic about the physical recreation element of martial arts, was suspicious of the ancient traditions and aristocratic lineage claimed by some practitioners. The Chinese State Commission for Physical Culture and Sports sought to resolve this tension by establishing one, national form of kung fu - wushu - backed by the All-China Wushu Association, created in 1958. This attempt to iron out the variety of Chinese martial arts was inevitably only partially successful. Nonetheless, the martial arts scene in China at the end of the twentieth century looked remarkably different from that at the century's beginning. Despite a large number of different schools, within each of these schools standardisation was complete. Here, as elsewhere, interpersonal violence in sport now took place within a much more rigorous and restrictive framework.

Clearly, then, the place of violence in world sport is highly complex. Nonetheless two distinct trends are observable. In the first instance, the West has seen a determined, and largely successful, attempt to eliminate sports which manipulate or showcase aggression between animals for entertainment. Although countries in many other parts of the world have attempted to pass some legislation prohibiting animal cruelty, these have tended to be less explicitly focused on animal sports and far less rigorously enforced. Elsewhere, the weight of tradition has protected animal combat sports from any serious threat of repression. In the second instance, there has been a concerted effort to rein in the degree of interpersonal violence tolerated in martial arts, boxing and wrestling in all parts of the world. While hand-to-hand combat sports remain popular across the globe, regulation has sharply reduced the risk of death or serious injury during competitive events. Violence in sport is still permitted, but the circumstances in which it is allowed to occur are now more tightly circumscribed.

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Source: Edwards Louise, Penn Nigel, Winter Jay (eds.). The Cambridge World History of Violence. Volume 4: 1800 to the Present. Cambridge University Press,2020. — 676 p.. 2020

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