Each part of a Thai fighters body is a potential lethal weapon, making it the most brutal of ring sports. In a Muay Thai contest a fighter can kick to a contestant's leg, body or head using the shin, knee or instep, punch or elbow to the face or body. Depicted on the walls of tombs at Beni Hasan in Egypt, dating from about 2000 to 1500 B.C., boxing is one of the oldest forms of competition. A part of the ancient Olympic games, the sport was exhausting and brutal. The Greeks fought without regard for weight differentials and without interruption, a match ending only when a fighter lost consciousness or raised his hand in resignation.
Boxers wound heavy strips of leather around their hands and wrists.
Statues of maimed boxers from late antiquity attest to the carnage. After the demise of the Olympics, boxing survived as a common sport. It persisted at local fairs and religious festivals throughout medieval Europe and was especially popular in the west and north of England, where it was often a combination of wrestling and street fighting. In early 18th-century England, boxing, with the aid of royal patronage in the form of betting or offering prizes, became organized. The latter called for boxing gloves, a limited number of 3-min rounds, the forbidding of gouging and wrestling, a count of 10 sec before a floored boxer is disqualified, and various other features of modern boxing.