A colleague of mine was telling me yesterday that she didn’t see the appeal of boxing. “The sport of boxing is really stupid because if you want to watch two people beat the hell out of each other, go to Chicago and watch a street fight,” the co-worker said.

Intrigued by her statement, and also smelling a possible column idea, I asked another female co-worker what she thought about it. “I don’t see the point to it, there are serious physical side effects and I don’t think its right to beat up another person for money,” she said.

This brings up the question, “when are they going to finish the construction in front of the Holmes Student Center? And what are they building anyway? A swimming pool?” But back to boxing.

Boxing should be defended because it has the best nicknames in sports if for no other reason: James “Bonecrusher” Smith, Vinnie “The Pazzmanian Devil” Pazienza, Johnny “the Golden Boy” LaLonde, Mickie “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up” LoPresti, Rob “another white guy about to get killed” Smith, etc.

Other sports nicknames don’t have the same impact. (Impact is French for ooomph). For example: Dwight “Doc” Gooden, Walter “Sweetness” Payton, “Broadway Joe” Namath, Kareem “Abdul” Jabbar. (Just kidding, Kareem, or should I say Abdul?)

“Broadway Joe”? “Doc”? “Sweetness”? Ooooh, just hearing those nicknames must really strike terror into the heart of the opposition.

But of course there are the questions raised by my anti-boxing brethren, or in this case sistren (I guess there’s no such word as sistren, but there should be.)

The first point, about going to Chicago if you want to see some guys punching each other may be true, but on the other hand most street fights don’t have scantily clad females with signs telling you what round it is. (unless you’re in the right neighborhood).

Secondly, about the physical side effects, sure a lot of former boxers sound like they have railroad spikes in the part of their brains that control speech, but so do most Chicago politicians and the only thing they’re usually hit with is subpeonas.

And about getting paid to beat people up, there are a lot of ways to make money that are much more immoral, I’d list examples but I’ve already slammed Chicago politicians in this column.

Boxing is a great sport, just look at what benefits it has brought to society: Mike Tyson has steady employment, ESPN has something to show between Canadian football and baseball highlight shows, and Don King can afford to wear a tuxedo year-round. (OK, so some of these benefits are greater than others.)

In short, I think those people who say boxing promotes savageness in society, brutality, and violent solutions to problems are wrong, and anyone who disagrees with me is going to get their nose broken.