The question has been asked – is boxing worth the risk?
Although boxing is the only legitimate sport that I can think of where the object of the exercise is to hurt your opponent sufficiently to prevent them from continuing the contest, there are other equally dangerous sports for people to take part in and no one is asking questions about those.
The reason why people are asking the question is that some people like to try and impose their own viewpoint on others and deny them free choice. Although I accept that repeated blows to the head can cause brain injuries and very occasionally death, the death or serious injury rate is less in boxing than in some other sports.
Purely from a personal viewpoint I would say that boxing is not worth the risk even though in my early navy days I went down that path for a while until a dropped defensive glove left my nose exposed to a crushing blow. The pain of the blow was nothing compared to the post-operative pain to put my nose back in the middle of my face. Although I did gain two weeks sick leave because of it.
Even if I were young enough to box again I would not but I would defend the right of anyone else to do so if they wanted to. Equally I would defend the right of anyone who did not want to box, not to do so.