ABSTRACT
Boxing, even more than other sports presents an activity in which the body is central. This chapter addresses some of the debates which have arisen, especially those relating to the idea that the mind and body are separate along with associated issues about the degree to which people are able to exercise agency and especially debates about embodied agency. The embodied masculinities that are forged in boxing can be seen as preemptive masculinities, where the centrality of the body and its practices provide a means of securing the self. Bob Connell poses the concept of body-reflexive practices as a means of challenging an over-social constructionist notion of the body, but with an understanding of the body which nonetheless retains its social dimensions. Bodies may be central to boxing but the discussion of how the body might be conceptualized and the problems that are raised when thinking about embodiment in relation to boxing have a much wider remit.
