I know many people bet on boxing matches and I recently saw a post on an "slapping tournament". I was thinking that professional boxing is kind of questionable as a sport discipline and even more so as a gambling event. It is known that many boxers sustain long term effects of repeated micro-trauma and even some have been know to die in the ring. For all boxing fans and for others that may have a view on this, how is this being considered a fully legal activity being supported? And how is betting of people hitting each other being considered as legal and ethical in today´s world?
It's interesting that you mention head trauma because American football has built quite a reputation for causing the same kind of damage and it could potentially be much worse (imagine one of those quarterbacks charging at you full pelt and you running straight towards them). I think we should be researching and teaching all athletes about the potential brain damaging effects of sports at an early age - not to scare them off, but to make sure that they are fully aware that it may cause difficulties elsewhere later in life. Either that or you need to see if adding much greater padding protection to absorb the hits will be able to mitigate the damage far enough.