Boxing and Masculinity supports tradition and rebellion, two chambers of the beating heart of boxing. For much of its long history, boxing has been seen as resistant to authority and social norms. It has been regarded as lawless and barbaric. Boxing is a martial art, a discipline that celebrates combat and competition. Essential to warrior culture, combat and competition form the other chambers of the heart that powers this great sport.

Boxing was never genteel, even as a sport for aristocrats in the eighteenth century. Boxing seems especially out of place in the kinder, gentler world taking shape for men today. With his boxing brothers, the fighting man pushes back against the conformity demanded by big tech and by the government, seen in its handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. Now that political mandates and media censorship have diminished individual freedom, boxing seems more rebellious and anti-social than ever.

Numerous studies have established the harm caused by the government-ordered shutdowns of 2020. Yet progressives continue to defend these measures, which were often no more than well-intentioned failures. We know that those states with the toughest restrictions incurred the worst damage (in Works Cited, see Kerpen, Moore, and Mulligan). Yet we are not permitted to ask about the origins of the pandemic or about the long-term consequences of pandemic-related policies. Big tech justifies the government’s demands, silences critics, and censors discussion. Ours is not to question why. Instead, we are supposed to put up and shut up.