No boxer tries to win on points. Everyone goes for the haymaker. As far as I’m aware this is the only sport where the deliberate intention is to cause potentially fatal brain damage to your opponent - because that’s what a knock-out can do. Twenty five years ago I read an article in a local newspaper where Nicky Piper’s wife, when asked about her opinion of the dangers of her husband’s profession (he was a well-regarded middleweight boxer at the time) said that “it’s safer than crossing the road”. She may have been joking, but in those pre internet or social media days, that was the only occasions I’ve ever felt the need to write to a newspaper with a strongly worded letter. To vent my spleen! Recently the Scottish boxer Mike Towell died following a bout and of course, those who know far more about boxing than me will be aware of the probably countless other boxers who have been killed either in the ring, following bouts, or who over the years have succumbed to boxing rela