End of the line for the Circus Train.

[Mayerling]

Hi, Jeff,

Yes, all good points about sport vs. religion.

I suppose American football could also be considered a form of ritualized combat, if we wanted to think of it that way. (By the way, I'm NOT a fan of any football team, and don't follow team sports in general.)

Archaeologists of the future are likely to be interpreting old Super bowl footage as a religious rite... they might not be that far off...

Hi Pat,

Well, I follow baseball more than football (American or European - the latter being soccer).

As for the future archaeologists of the world looking at Super bowl footage...yeah they could be said to be religious. After all, we mostly begin watching it after Thanksgiving!

Jeff

[Steadmund Brand]

Hi Pat D.,

I was thinking about your list of ancient events for public consumption. The gladiatorial combat certainly was, but it survives in boxing, wrestling (especially WWF variety on television, with it's faked degree of intensity), and (in a way - not totally) in the Olympics with the game rivalries for achievements. But the Minoan bull horn jumping and the ripping out of beating hearts of victims by the Aztecs, were parts of religions. While a religious service has a mass audience watching, the priests of Tenochtitlan (Aztecs) or of Crete would probably have resented being compared to circus ringmasters.

In fact the bull horn jumping may also still exist in a crazy form of descent - the running of the bulls every year at Pamplona, with its list of human casualties.

Jeff

Take the circus (already got rid of the freak shows anyway...and as far as I'm concerned that was the best part), take MMA and Wrestling.... but keep your damn hands off Boxing!!!!! (sorry, it is after all how I made my living for years)

Steadmund Brand

[Mayerling]

Take the circus (already got rid of the freak shows anyway...and as far as I'm concerned that was the best part), take MMA and Wrestling.... but keep your damn hands off Boxing!!!!! (sorry, it is after all how I made my living for years)

Steadmund Brand

Sorry for my ignorance, but how?

Jeff

[GUT]

Sorry for my ignorance, but how?

Jeff

How'd they get rid of the freak shows?

They let certain people out of their contracts.

[Mayerling]

How'd they get rid of the freak shows?

They let certain people out of their contracts.

Well, I suppose they found other avenues of work - politics. One recently was elected President of the United States

[Steadmund Brand]

Sorry for my ignorance, but how?

Jeff

I was an amateur boxer, a car crash ended my "career" but then I became a trainer, and a writer, spend many years doing both, better part of my life, I still am active in the sport, but it is not my main income

Steadmund Brand

[Mayerling]

I was an amateur boxer, a car crash ended my "career" but then I became a trainer, and a writer, spend many years doing both, better part of my life, I still am active in the sport, but it is not my main income

Steadmund Brand

I have never been a boxer, and am hardly a model for physical fitness (not at my age and weight).

However, I have always thought boxing far more complex a sport than most people think because of the tactics needed for combination shots. It has been a subject of some interest to me on occasion.

Sorry your career got derailed. But you found a way of expanding on what you could do. Congratulations for that.

Jeff

[Robert]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-gloucestershire-38756918