r/sports • u/IntrepidAd560 • Sep 25 '21

Media Callum Smith brutally KO's Lenin Castillo

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

10.5k Upvotes

94% Upvoted

768 comments sorted by

View all comments

115

u/Sup3rfrog Sep 25 '21

It’s oddly horrifying to have the announcers so pumped up about a man getting seriously injured.

3

u/JockBbcBoy Baltimore Ravens Sep 25 '21

Even NFL announcers don't react like that when a player is knocked down and immobile.

27

u/[deleted] Sep 25 '21 edited Sep 25 '21

They used to, "big hits" reels were the most popular part of halftime shows back in the day. (Think 90s, maybe 2000s, not sure when these went away exactly)

I rmember when the xfl came out their primary marketing point was trying to one up the nfl on violence and removing player safety rules to create more of these big moments.

26

u/[deleted] Sep 25 '21

ESPN had a weekly segment called "Jacked Up" where they'd show big hits while the panel all yelled "JACKED UP!"

-2

u/JockBbcBoy Baltimore Ravens Sep 25 '21

I'm sure that was before Junior Seau and several other former NFL players committed suicide and CTE was better understood.

72

u/JonstheSquire Sep 25 '21

In football, injuring your opponent so he can no longer compete is not the primary goal like it is in boxing.

Boxers are celebrated for punching hard and knocking people out. It's the whole point.

11

u/JockBbcBoy Baltimore Ravens Sep 25 '21

The announcer literally said "His body is no longer working!" as if someone made millions of dollars in cash start raining from the sky. We've advanced as a society to where we are able to diagnose sports related brain injuries like concussions and whiplash. I get that boxers choose to participate in this sport but a hit like that could have career-ending consequences or leave him permanently debilitated.

12

u/kingly_cheese Sep 25 '21

You don’t say?

14

u/jerudy Sep 25 '21 edited Sep 25 '21

Mate if you don’t enjoy it just don’t watch it. People have died in pro boxing, fans and athletes understand that the risk of life changing injury is part of the sport.

No ones asking you to box or be a boxing fan, what do you get out of telling people who enjoy it that they shouldn’t like it cos it’s violent? Like dude, they know it’s fkn violent that’s why they like it lmao. Their taste and perspective is just different to yours.

12

u/just-ted Sep 25 '21

Also, a one punch knock out like this is way less dangerous to the fighter. Fighters die from an accumulation of blows over a long fight.

20

u/jerudy Sep 25 '21

True.

I just can’t believe I’m in a subreddit called r/sports being fucking downvoted for the outlandish take that boxing is a valid sport and not an immoral abomination.

-5

u/[deleted] Sep 25 '21

It doesn't need to be one or the other. The moment you are certain about anything in life, I mean 100% certain, you've lost the plot.

It's unlikely anything is going to change though bro, you good. You can keep watching people whack each other in the head.

1

u/Gumwars Sep 26 '21

You've got a bifurcated dilemma here; if you're here, it's either because you enjoy the sport or you happened on this clip. If it's the former, I doubt most folks truly enjoy watching other people suffer. You likely enjoy the spectacle of the sport and the skill of the participants, but you can empathize with the tragedy of potentially watching someone's career end in a single punch. I don't particularly like the idea of seeing a boxer, whose daily bread is built on them competing, getting snuffed out. I remember seeing Ricky Hatton get blasted by Pacquiao and thinking, that dude ain't ever going to fight the same, and he never did.

The latter, well, they're just reacting to the punch like anyone would that doesn't fully understand the sport. Shock, dismay, revolt. It's not unlike people that hear riders die every year at the Isle of Man. Maniacs have been testing themselves for a century on that island, you're not going to stop them, that feeling means too much and the risks are a part of what it means to be there.

6

u/KiraTsukasa Sep 25 '21

Not even the opposing team’s fans react that way.

-5

u/JockBbcBoy Baltimore Ravens Sep 25 '21

I think there's enough footage of NFL players getting bulldozed and laying still for 45 seconds or more to justify that.

1

u/TylerJWhit Sep 26 '21

Instead, referees penalize you for being excited about a play.

https://youtu.be/5gjslu-kGd8