What Joanna Lumley and two cobras taught me about boxing

Why do we box? It’s an almost ludicrously inefficient form of combat. The last thing the SAS suggests its soldiers to do is put their dooks up. But boxing is nonetheless the world’s leading combat sport — millions watch boxing in lockdown, and when we’re all allowed out, thousands will head first to the pub, then out into the streets and carparks, to throw punches at each other’s heads. Why?

I have the answer. It came to me by a combination of Joanna Lumley and a fight I once witnessed between cobras.

Boxing is not a great form of combat — not if your aim is to put your opponent out of action fast. But Joanna, visiting a boxing gym in Cuba for a recent television programme, made a crucial point: ‘It’s the most natural thing in the world — you put your fists up.’ She was right.

There are Sumerian images of boxing 5,000 years old. Evidence for boxing has been found in ancient Babylon and on Egyptian papyrus. Boxing was part of the Olympic Games in 688 bc. What’s more, when Voulters fought Hassett in the battle of 2Ex at Emanuel School, they put their fists up. When my neighbour Ah-Chuen on Lamma Island, Hong Kong, took exception to a visiting Japanese engineer, he conveyed his reproof with swinging fists. It’s what people do. It seems not to vary from culture to culture: it’s a human thing.

Boxing hurts the hands too much to carry on for long, but it’s quite good at sorting out the winner from the loser

If you want to win a fight, the default ploy is to kick your opponent in the balls and perhaps then in the head. Saves untold trouble. But boxers don’t do that, because it’s against the rules, and bar-room fighters tend not to either, because there seems to be a power-ful inhibition that stops them.