For on the subject of boxing, I have already made clear that my views are in accord with a growing number of people around the world, who understand now what we didn't actually grasp when we first got gripped by professional pugilism, back in its halcyon days. It doesn't just do damage to the unlucky few, it damages everyone who participates. No exceptions. It makes their brain bleed, and hurts it in a manner from which there is no coming back from.

Knowing what we know now about the damage done by two men trying to rattle each other's brain-stems to the point that enough damage is done that they sink into unconsciousness, it is, therefore, simply not morally sustainable to continue to follow it, to support it, to watch it, to bet on it, to pay money to actually attend the match.

On this subject, thank you, Billy, I couldn't agree with me more.

As I have written, there will come a time where we will look at boxing, and UFC, and say ... really? (Actually, on UFC, most of us already do.)

Did we really pay money to watch men try to batter each other into unconsciousness and .. ?

And a pause, to allow the defenders to howl that plenty of sports have concussion as an unfortunate byproduct of the game, and that the football codes like rugby, rugby league, Aussie Rules and even soccer are foremost among them.

But there is a key difference.

Yes, all those codes have to take ever greater care in limiting the damage, led by rugby league which has, extraordinarily decided that, somehow, it is OK to bring back the biff in internationals, as if, somehow, the very factors that made the authorities ban it at domestic level and Origin, don't apply there.

But, as I've also already noted, at least with those sports, concussion is the unfortunate byproduct when things go wrong.

In boxing, it is the whole aim of the bloody game, the whole point of the exercise. As a matter of fact, if you actually rattle their brain stem so much they can't get up anymore, you are the hero of the piece!

Did we really follow such a sport, even though we understood the devastation that awaits for so many of them, precisely because we so encouraged them to do it?

You and me and everyone, we were the ones who kept Muhammad Ali out there so long that he turned into the shambling, tragic wreck that he became. We were the ones who ignored the fact that his reaction time slowed over the years, that his speech was slurred and that he was clearly brain damaged.

But I, for one, can't do it anymore.

And I particularly can't do it when it comes to Danny Green and Anthony Mundine, the two boxers – both in their early 40s – who have just announced a return bout of their famous 2006 clash, in Adelaide in February.

No, no, no, a thousand times no.

I admire them both, enormously. Their courage, their skill, their personas, their back stories ... all strong.

I particularly admire Mundine for his generosity of spirit, his willingness to take the fame he has earned in sport, and put it towards seriously strong causes – irrespective of the flak that he all too frequently takes from people not fit to tie his bootlaces.

But support him, at the age of 41, as he tries to batter a 43-year-old into unconsciousness?

No.

Endorse his cavalier attitude, where he predicts that "[Green] should knock me out in the third or fourth round," as in, should batter me into unconsciousness in just 10 to 15 minutes, no doubt causing even more lasting damage than he has already inevitably sustained?

No.

Embrace the idea that it is somehow OK, because this is their last big pay-day, and they'll each make a reputed $10 million?

Absolutely not. That way lies catastrophe that can be summed up in just two words. Muhammad Ali. What good, their money, when their brains are scrambled?

It will happen, tragically, but at least those who turn away from it now, can have some solace that we did not contribute to it.

Twitter: @Peter_Fitz