Abstract
The paper relates that the programming of boxing matches on Home Box Office indicates that HBO executives understand its diminishing market appeal but recognize that their telecasts draw a niche audience that is very loyal to the sport. The paper discusses how HBO boxing programming reflects the limited market appeal of this sport and the post network TV market environment, but also demonstrates that HBO executives believe their channel's boxing telecasts play an important role in maintaining HBO's brand identity, which was developed through offering entertainment programming with broad market appeal but also sports programming for niche audiences.

From the Paper
"The programming of boxing matches on Home Box Office indicates that HBO executives understand its diminishing market appeal but recognize that their telecasts draw a niche audience that is very loyal to the sport. HBO boxing programming reflects the limited market appeal of this sport and the post network TV market environment, but also demonstrates that HBO executives believe their channel's boxing telecasts play an important role in maintaining HBO's brand identity, which was developed through offering..."

Tags:sports, hbo, boxing

Abstract
This paper considers the history of black slave boxing and what this activity provided to plantation owners and to slaves. The paper notes that for the slaves, there were benefits in terms of special privileges, but there would also be added burdens. Just as many poor blacks today take up boxing as a way out of poverty, so many black slaves took up boxing to gain advantages, even to the point of being manumitted or freed in some cases.

Tags:black, slave, boxing

Abstract
The paper focuses on the fixing of boxing matches, also known as "taking a dive". The paper looks at Harry Sylvester's short story, "I Won't Do No Dive", where a down-on-his-luck boxer, Al, is convinced by his manager, Pete, to purposely lose a boxing match.

From the Paper
"By the end of this unit, submit a short paper that describes the sports phenomenon that you have selected for the cultural phenomenon project. As you select a phenomenon for study keep in mind that everything from football player, to an individual volleyball game, to the rules of golf constitutes a text. This project will give you the opportunity to apply literary analysis skills to that which interests you and hopefully, intrigues you most. In your short paper, explain what makes your chosen person, event or issue significant. Summarize where you believe this phenomenon connects with literature, or state that you believe this phenomenon has no literary..."

Tags:cultural, phenomenon, boxing

Abstract
This paper explains that, as a complementary philosophy to Confucianism, Daoism, which enriches in every way the spiritual and intellectual life of Chinese people, is reflected in the Chinese martial art of taiji shadow boxing. The author points out that taiji boxing, was invented by a Daoist called Zhang Sanfeng in the Ming dynasty on the Wudang Mountain; the name "taiji", which means "the supreme ultimate", itself suggests an essential concept of Daoist cosmology. The paper stresses that, if the forces of the western boxing are like a hard and straight oak tree, the movement of Taiji boxing is more like that of soft reed or bamboo, which knows how to move, how to yield, so it can survive a strong wind; whereas, the oak tree will probably be broken down. Many quotations from the writings of the founders of Daoism, Laozi and Zhuangzi. Symbol included.

Table of Contents
A Brief Introduction to Daoism
The Dao Reflected in the Taiji Boxing
The Name and the Diagram
The Value of Gentleness
The Non-Action
The Dialectics in Taiji Boxing
A Way of Getting Close to the Dao

From the Paper
"Knowing the power of softness, Taiji practitioners learn to yield to the opponent, become even in harmony with the attacker so as to use the strength of the attacker himself. The soft movement of Taiji will control the force not by resist to it but by swinging with it, leading the force to its extreme, transforming it to its natural opposite side again. You can see it clearer in the diagram. When there's a strong positive Yang power coming from one side, the natural way is not to confront it with another Yang force, instead, you guide the force by using the negative Yin force. In this way, there will be no more conflict, the inner harmony is regained. the "non-action" is another important element of Daoism."

Tags:cosmology, soft, non-action, ming, movement

Abstract
This paper contends that boxing should not be banned because it is a natural athletic competition that is no more violent than any other sport. The paper claims that, although many gambling and financial scandals have plagued the boxing industry over the years, boxing remains one of the most profitable sports in the United States. The paper explains that to ban boxing would severely damage the sports broadcasting industry and the sports media. The paper states that the sport fuels the pay-per-view industry as well and banning the sport would injure the livelihoods of many who work within related industries.

From the Paper
"Boxing was banned from the first modern Olympic Games in 1896 because the sport was considered to be too violent. Only until 1920 did the sport gain international recognition, followed by a wave of immense popularity due to the likes of boxing heroes like Cassius Clay (Mohammad Ali) and George Foreman. Undoubtedly boxing is one of the most blatantly violent sports. Only recently has one-on-one fighting superceded boxing's intensity on television with the anything-goes rules of "ultimate fighting" competitions. Boxing usually results in at least a little blood spill, and involves intense blows to the head that can cause brain damage or even death. In extreme cases, the violence of boxing bleeds outside of the ring, as when Mike Tyson brutally bit the ear of opponent Evander Holyfield. Because of the intensity of boxing's violence, many individuals and groups have called for a ban of boxing, at least on television."

Tags:fighting, violent, sport

Abstract
This paper examines how one of the first systems of institutionalizing and creating a more humane and formal structure for the pugilistic art of boxing was achieved by the codification of the boxing rules and regulations of the Marquis of Queensbury, who was the father of ?Boise?, or Lord Alfred Douglas, the male lover of Oscar Wilde. It analyzes how this strange paring in history of a famous coupling of homosexuality and an advocate of masculinity in its raw form of Victorian sport embodies the contradiction in the cult of Victorian masculinity.

From the Paper
"In this cult, erotic, athletic, and sexual encounters between men were virtually institutionalized in the British university and public school system, idealized in the era's imperial worship of Greek and Roman classicism and culture, yet also outlawed according to the strictures of governance according to the nation. Bare-fisted boxing, continued even after the Queensbury rules were passed, as is evident in popular illustrations of the period. The popularity of bare-fisted boxing in art and in print also shows how long the supposedly illegal art of bare-fisted boxing continued in the open. This bare-fisted sport was often practiced by working men at taverns, and became a kind of proving-ground of masculinity, away from the more regulated and elite forms of boxing according to the rules."

Tags:marquis, queensbury, bare, fisted, knuckle

From the Paper
"Boxing is on one level simply an athletic contest between two persons, each of whom uses the fists to try to knock the other unconscious or to inflict enough punishment to cause the opponent either to quit or to be judged beaten. A boxing match is conducted under established rules and procedures and has a referee, judges, and timekeeper - all conventions instituted to make the sport more like a sport and less like a fight and to insure that the participants are not permanently harmed.
The history of boxing has been in more or less equal parts violence, strength, the attempt to redefine violence instead of strength as the essential quality for an athlete and corruption, for boxing has almost always had a fair amount of money floating around it. It is perhaps inevitable that any sport that includes both money and violence must also be corrupted by extralegal forms."

From the Paper
"Olympism evokes "the ancient principles of pure athletic emulation for the sake of serving and disseminating ideals of humanism, peace and simplicity.". As such, the sport of Boxing holds a place in Olympic history as one of the oldest exemplars of this spirit. Although not one of the original sports included in the ancient Greek festival contests, Boxing was added early on, in the twenty-third Olympiad (708 B. C.).. Indeed, it was the Boxing event that marked one of the Olympic Games' earliest dramas. In 480 B. C., even as the fate of Greece lay in the balance while the famous "300 Spartans" held off the invading Persian juggernaut at Thermopylae, the stadium in Olympia was full: thousands watched the finals of the Boxing tournament being played out to their conclusion..


Drama has always been a major part of Boxing, presenting as..."

Abstract
In this article, the writer compares and contrasts the book 'Houdini's Box' with the movie 'The Illusionist', focusing on Houdini in the book and the main character, Eisenheim the illusionist in the movie. The differences in their motivation, including Houdini's obsession with escapism, are discussed.

From the Paper
"The world of an illusionist is a world of deception sometimes danger and the creation of an alternative reality the one that the audience sees as opposed to the one that actually exists. The motivations for being an illusionist though can differ widely as 'Houdini's Box' and 'The Illusionist' show. In 'Houdini's Box' the author psychoanalyzes Houdini delving into why he was an illusionist exploring his motivations and the possible reasons for them. In 'The Illusionist' on the other hand it ..."

Tags:Houdini's Box, The Illusionist, escapism, illusion, comparison/contrast

Abstract
This paper looks at Joan Ryan's essay "Little Girls in Pretty Boxes" that applies observations of society from George Orwell's novel "1984." It looks at how Ryan's essay centers on the treatment of young female women, mainly athletes, that fits into Orwell's vision of a dystopian society.

From the Paper
" Joan Ryan chooses the title of her essay well. The girls she writes about are little. They are little in physical stature immature of mind and body. Yet they are boxed into the telescreen of society's superficial eye under the "

Tags:Joan Ryan, Little Girls in Pretty Boxes, gymnastics, figure skating, George Orwell, 1984, Dystopia