Because boxers used to fight in a circle drawn on the floor, called the ring. This name stuck On even after the boxing ring became a square in the old days the fighters were surrounded by the crowd in a circle. They call the fighters to the ring. Because a long long time ago, before "rings" when two men brawled in the dirt people use to watch by standing round them, in a ring shape, then when a stage was added the name just stayed the same, the squared circle.
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The match starts when the bell RINGS! That's one "version"!
An other one is based in a change of term of the old concept of a Coliseum which was round, dating back to the Roman Empire's good old days.
In the early days of professional fist fighting, groups of fighters would travel from town to town challenging the local men. The fighters would arrange some of the spectators in a circle and have them hold a ring of rope. Any man wishing to challenge one of the boxers would "toss his hat into the ring." The bout would then take place in this early boxing "ring."
As the number of spectators increased, the hand-held ring no longer sufficed, and it became necessary to fashion an enclosure by attaching ropes to stakes driven into the ground. Four stakes were normally used, which produced a square enclosure, but it continued to be called a boxing ring.
The area within which the opponents were limited to have their boxing match might have been called a "boxing rink" at one time and eventually became referred to as a a "boxing ring".
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Another reason that the "boxing ring" should be square: Can you imagine the announcer introducing a contestant, "If it would have been round, "And in this ARC we have Block Buster Butch..."
Betaclamp's point-of-view: All of the above has missed this Point: The last couple of times I attended a boxing match, I asked the Officials "Why do we call this 'Boxing'?" None of them knew. Up at the top I found the Answer - Boxing is called Boxing because the 'combat' occurs and takes place WITHIN A BOX. Thank you.
As well, in the top paragraph above, somehow 'professional fist fighter' becomes [in the third sentence] 'boxer'. Perhaps this needs explaining [preferably by the Author!], in the aim of understanding the origin of the name 'boxer'.
The name ring is an atavism from when contests were fought in a roughly drawn circle on the ground. The name ring continued with the Jack Broughton rules in 1743, which specifed a small circle in the centre of the fight area where the boxers met at the start of each round. The first square ring was introduced by the Pugilistic Society in 1838. That ring was specified as 24 feet (7.3 m) square and bound by two ropes. For these and other reasons, the boxing ring is commonly referred to as the "square circle."