It'll certainly get to the US courts. And the NFL will likely be forced to concede in spades. At that point the starting pistol is fired. You'd think the British legal system would be an impermeable membrane to such claims (what this suggests about the merits of the British legal system is another question entirely). I equate the ever-expanding scope of liability claims to rain falling on a house. Even though quality of materials and methods of construction ostensibly preclude even the possibility of water getting inside, good ol' H20 will patiently go about its business of testing each and every seal in a dogged war of attrition until one of them fails. It could be tomorrow. It could be in twenty years. Eventually a gutter becomes blocked with leaves, a torrent of water gushes onto the second floor brickwork and three weeks later you've got damp in the bedroom.



I don't think that will be enough. Remember, one of the most shocking results of these studies is that tests carried out on kids found that a frightening number showed early symptoms of brain damage. These weren't the result of vicious head shots but rather an accumulation of thousands of small bangs and knocks picked up in everyday rough-and-tumble. Worse still - given that nearly 98% of players tested in one study manifested symptoms you can't really fall back on the "bad luck" argument. It's a near certainty that playing NFL will give you brain damage of some description. That's a very tough position to defend.



Don't let the silly money thrown at that joke of a fight between Mayweather and Pacquiao fool you. Boxing through wholesale corruption and criminal mismanagement is practically on its knees as a professional sport and of all those listed it is undoubtedly in the weakest position to survive intact from any kind of legal challenge.

Boxing on its knees? You taking the pi**. Boxing just had the biggest fight of the decade and possibly all time. British boxing just had its biggest fight of all time in froch v groves 2.

British boxing is as good as its been for many years. Kell brook is world champion alongside Carl Froch, Scott Quigg Andy lee , McDonnell, and Carl Frampton. We have groves, Degale, Paul smith, kal yafai, tyson fury, ricky burns, kevin Mitchell all in world title fights this year. Paul smith who part of the smith brothers has a title against pound for pound one the best boxers about in Andre Ward. Amir Khan at welterwieght looks truly world class and looks set for mid September fight with floyd "money" mayweather. Moving up to 147lbs has been great move for Khan. Our own Martin murray will be looking to bounce back from his world title shot with GGG who is the deadliest puncher in world boxing.

The yanks have just had their first heavyweight champ in ten years with wilder sweeping thru the ranks with 32 fights and 32 wins and 31 by ko.

The is some massive massive fights to me made. Boxing is booming over the last two years and British boxing has some big fights that can be made.

Groves v Degale
Frampton v Quigg
Price v Joshua.
Khan v brook
Murray v Andy lee
Callum smith v rocky fielding
St Pete v mugwamp

Oh for god's sake shut up you silly fool. I won't even begin to go into the decline in viewing figures over the last ten years, the paucity of talent at heavyweight, the terminal decline of American boxing at both professional and amateur levels, the proliferation of ABC belts, meaningless titles, ridiculously over-protected fighters who'd rather preserve their unbeaten records against a succession of tin cans than take on quality opposition, the elevation of "fitness conditioners" over (quality) ex-pros as cornermen (see Adam Booth and David Haye), the depressing slide in skills this has resulted in (I can't remember the last fighter I saw who possessed a quality jab and knew how to use it), atrocious undercards, bad fight timing (Mayweather vs Pacquiao came SEVEN YEARS TOO LATE) - all of which has encouraged long-term fans to drift away from the sport whilst kids are far more attracted to better promoted (if entirely crap) "sports" such as UFC etc. etc.

I like Carl Froch. He's a true warrior and one of the few fighters in boxing who will genuinely take on all-comers. But as a fighter he's so technically flawed one might wonder whether he's boxing at all. His "defence" consists of his chin. That's it. His "attack" is so telegraphed his opponent could easily exit the ring for a pee and make it back between the moment Carl decides to throw a punch and the time that it lands.

The "biggest fight of the decade" was nothing short of a joke. To sum up - Mayweather cynically waited until Pacquiao's skills had all but gone before pouncing. In the ring Manny looked a SHOT FIGHTER from the first minute. You can't even begin to compare him to the guy who blasted Marco Antonio Barrera into retirement. To be honest I didn't think much of Mayweather, either. As usual he threw just enough scoring punches to steal the rounds. Like Manny he's a long, long way from his prime. And as for the undercard ...



Highly overrated vs Highly unprofessional. Doesn't interest me.



I like Frampton. I don't rate Quigg at all.



PRICE??? You're kidding me. I hope Joshua works out but I can't say that I'm all that enamoured with his fighting style. How anyone so young can be so flat-footed I don't know.



Khan is as thick as a brick and has lost at least two fights because of it. Indeed, his stupidity irreparably damaged his own career picking some truly atrocious cornermen who taught him terrible habits. This is a guy who figured it was a good idea to hire a coach who seriously believed Breidis Prescott was a good match-up for a young kid with a suspect chin still learning the ropes.

Kell Brook is a throwback to the bad old days of British fighters hamstrung by British promoters who seek to squeeze ever last drop of money out of the paying audience before moving up to the next level. He should have been fighting at this level FOUR YEARS AGO.



Is this fight supposed to capture the imagination of viewers or lobotomise them?



Stick to watching Rocky, champ.

If Hohaia sues anyone, I'd imagine it would be Flower himself. If he claims that punch caused the damage how exactly could he sue Wigan (or the RFL) for Flower's moment of lunacy? Wane ranting before another game is hardly evidence of a plan to punch an unconscious man on the floor.

If OTOH he sues on the basis of repetitive issues, then Flower would be off the hook, but I Hohaiha would have a hard time convincing a court of negligence on the part of the game itself, which I personally think has/is reacting quite well to the issue (especially given its very limited resources compared to the NFL). Banning the shoulder charge to the head caused no end of wailing amongst fans, but IMO was a huge positive for the game generally.

As an aside I also suspect you could dig up a fair amount of footage of Lance himself hitting players around the head (mainly accidentally but there isn't a long-serving player around who hasn't done it quite often). No idea what that would mean if went to court though.

I'm not sure why you are conflating Lance Hohaia's situation with the systemic predicament all collision sports will likely face at some in the future - especially since neither the thread title nor the initial post makes any mention of Lance Hohaia.

Which means ... what exactly? I don't know how many fights I've watched. A lot I suppose. It's not something I count.



The only fights I've been remotely interested in watching live I didn't stand a cat in hell's chance of getting tickets to.



Good for you. If it were me I wouldn't have wasted the money. The fight came too late. Both are years past their primes. The undercard was diabolical.



I'm not interested in providing charity.
I don't much care for silly stunts.
I'm 43. Unfit and overweight.
I have a life.

The great mugwamp is unfit, overweight and not interested in giving to a good cause? I'll tie my left behind my back if you want?

You have this mentality to disregard anything you have no interest in. Boxing in Britain is booming since the London Olympics. Arenas all over the country are selling out every single fight. Josh Warrington from leeds is relatively a novice in the paid ranks and sold out leeds arena. The smith Brothers often sell out the Liverpool Echo arena. Quigg, crolla and co sell out phones 4 you arena regular. Luke Campbell v tommy coyle will sell KC out (something hull rl can't do. Frampton filled a purpose bulit outdoor arena out. Froch v groves sold 80,000 at Wembley.

Yeah I see what you mean, boxing is on its knees

www.abae.co.uk/aba/index.cfm/new ... n-funding/ www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/boxing/23126816 www.gbboxing.org.uk/news/one-yea ... cy-525.php

www.abae.co.uk/aba/index.cfm/new ... n-funding/ www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/boxing/23126816 www.gbboxing.org.uk/news/one-yea ... cy-525.php

That's right - just disregard each and every criticism I've raised. There are no problems in boxing. Move along.

Boxing will be fine. Like every sport it seems like the fans have been predicting it's decline for years but still it remains one of the most lucrative sports in the world.

Now that May-Pac is done, and Al Haymon is building his empire and getting boxing back on terrestrial TV in America, along with the bypassing of the alphabet soup governing bodies I think the next 5 years could well see a revolution in boxing.

I'm sorry - I thought we were talking about boxing in the popular sense - i.e. a globalised sport primarily centred in the United States of America.

If funding is up in the UK - great. If gates are up in the UK - great. However, this doesn't alter the fact that there are serious structual and systemic problems within the global sport of boxing.

Precisely where do you think half-assed sports such as UFC have stolen much of their substantial fan-base from?

As for measuring the health of a sport PURELY IN TERMS OF MONEY - Jesus Wept! By that rationale - Mayweather vs Pacquiao was the greatest fight in the history of boxing rather than a dreary afterthought.

Surely you can't be happy about the fact that old gimmers such as Hopkins have managed to squeeze out ten years or more at the top purely because - until recently - THERE WAS NO ONE OF ANY QUALITY TO STOP HIM .

High profile fights such as Calzaghe vs Roy Jones or David Haye vs Dr. K etc. etc. have been nothing short of embarrassments.

Too many belts. Too many over-protected fighters. Too little actual fighting.

I've heard all this before. The last time it was Golden Boy Productions (which, initially, did seem like it was putting together decent fights with good undercards).

Look how THAT worked out.

It's already happened