True, true, and equally some people do not take up boxing purely for sport. Some might live in an area of economic downturn and find that they can earn money whacking other people for the entertainment of others and since they enjoy a bit of a punch up outside the pub of a Friday night, it's a better prospect than signing on, or in the days of old, going down the pit or in the mills where your average live expectancy was probably not that far off the average boxers.
Of course, in the current era such circumstances are becoming fewer and farer between and, as has already been stated, boxing has seen a decline over recent years, but street violence has risen, is that unbridled rage that might have gone into the ring, or into the army in years past the same that stalks the streets at night with a tin in its hand ready to 'kick off' at someone who looks at them 'funny'? I know where it would be better served than on the local council estate and that is in the ring where a measure of self-discipline could be taught alongside anger releasing fights. However, this is travelling outside the moral dillemma which is the question we have asked ourselves and into more defined scenarios. To some people sport is not a 'sport' it is a way of life, it is like art, artists don't paint because they feel like it, they paint because they want money for their work for the most part, and it is perhaps at that point where sport and art, stop being sport and art and become a job.
I once asked my grandfather, who is quite a talented artist on the quiet, why he didn't do it professionally, and he replied to me that he enjoyed painting, he'd go down to his little garden shed and pass the hours behind a canvas at his own leisure, but if he had to do this to a deadline, he couldn't do it as well as he does because it would no longer be leisure, it would be work and work is very rarely fun! :haha:
However, on the flip side, no-one says that you have to remain a boxer or artist for the rest of your life, but I fear that it is human nature to always want a little bit more, and once money flies in, common sense often flies out...and thus it's always a case of 'The next match will be my last'.

There is one other aspect I think that should be addressed though...

Who is truely at fault for the death of a 25 year old boxer though? The boxer himself, or the audience that continues to pay the boxing trade? Would people continue to box professionally if there was no money in it?

Something to think about while I try and figure out what I've just typed because I'm rambling again because it's 2:09am.... :hmmm: