Other Sports
Although the practice of trying to distract opponents by verbal abuse is common to virtually all sports, "sledging" per se relates to cricket. Other sports sometimes have their own terminology for verbal abuse: for example, basketball calls it trash talk and in ice hockey it is called chirping.
Of course, it has long been an integral part of boxing, in which during the preliminaries and the fights themselves the boxers frequently verbally abuse each other and threaten dire consequences. This is usually intended to hype up the fight to attract more media attention and bigger crowds. Muhammed Ali was renowned for loudly rapping in which round he would despatch his opponent, but the most famous sledging was his more serious "What's my name?" roared at his fallen opponent, who had dared still call him Cassius Clay.
Down Gaelic footballer Benny Coulter has admitted to being targeted by sledging while on the field of play.
Read more about this topic: Sledging (cricket)
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