If you are a professional doing it for 20 years against insanely powerful opponent without head protection, yes. If you spar a not quite full force with people who are not very strong wearing head protection and engage in the occasional amateur match, not. I cannot promise it is completely safe, but the whole number of times force applied * strength of force—Armor Class of the head protection seems to put it into an entirely different ballpark.
I think the dangerous reputation of boxing should be tackled by making head protection mandatory for professionals, just as it is mandatory on amateur matches. Otherwise people think of Ali and get scared away from it even though the difference is as much as driving Nascar / F1 vs. commuting to work.
If you are a professional doing it for 20 years against insanely powerful opponent without head protection, yes. If you spar a not quite full force with people who are not very strong wearing head protection and engage in the occasional amateur match, not. I cannot promise it is completely safe, but the whole number of times force applied * strength of force—Armor Class of the head protection seems to put it into an entirely different ballpark.
I think the dangerous reputation of boxing should be tackled by making head protection mandatory for professionals, just as it is mandatory on amateur matches. Otherwise people think of Ali and get scared away from it even though the difference is as much as driving Nascar / F1 vs. commuting to work.