Boxing is a combat sport in which two people, usually wearing protective gloves,
throw punches at each other for a predetermined amount of time in a boxing ring.
Amateur boxing is both an Olympic and Commonwealth Games sport and is a standard fixture in
most international games—it also has its own World Championships. Boxing is overseen by
a referee over a series of one- to three-minute intervals called rounds.
A winner can be resolved before the completion of the rounds when a referee deems an
opponent incapable of continuing, disqualification of an opponent, or resignation of an opponent.
When the fight reaches the end of its final round with both opponents still standing, the judges'
scorecards determine the victor. In the event that both fighters gain equal scores from the
judges, professional bouts are considered a draw. In Olympic boxing, because a winner must be
declared, judges award the contest to one fighter on technical criteria.
While humans have fought in hand-to-hand combat since the dawn of human history, the earliest
evidence of fist-fighting sporting contests date back to the ancient Near East in the 3rd and 2nd
millennia BC.[2] The earliest evidence of boxing rules date back to Ancient Greece, where boxing
was established as an Olympic game in 688 BC.[2] Boxing evolved from 16th- and 18th-century
prizefights, largely in Great Britain, to the forerunner of modern boxing in the mid-19th century
with the 1867 introduction of the Marquess of Queensberry Rules.