This year's Summer Olympics marked the 25th Games in which modern boxing was a featured sport. Some form of boxing made its first appearance as an Olympic event in 688 B.C., but the 1904 Olympics at the St. Louis World's Fair capitalized on the rising popularity of gloved pugilism for the first time in the modern era. It marked the beginning of an Olympic institution. Boxing continued to evolve as a sport, as did its sanctioning and governing on the international level. But things have indeed gotten messy. 

"The Olympics aren't really about fairy tales anymore," wrote John Feinstein of The Washington Post just weeks before Rio's opening ceremony. "[The Olympics] are about corporate money grabs, deal-making officials and agents, and marketing campaigns for rich athletes who see the Olympics as a way to get richer."

Unfortunately the boxing portion of the Olympics now serves as an extension of the Games themselves in that it is often marred by corruption and/or incompetence. The International Boxing Association, which sanctions boxing in the Olympics,faced constant scrutiny throughout the competition in Rio for both its new regulations and its handling of scoring controversies. 

Following extensive research, the AIBA voted to discontinue the use of headgear in men's amateur events in 2013 -- a decision met with disapproval in many circles. The AIBA's move to ditch headgear garnered more criticism when two lightweights suffered bad cuts on the third day of competition,and the blood continued to flow as the fights came and went.

Just days later the AIBA's negative press reached its peak as two questionable decisions were rendered for Russian fighters who would eventually medal and the AIBA's response was less transparent than it should have been. After apparently reviewing a number of the bouts in Rio, the AIBA decided to remove an undisclosed number of officials for the remainder of the Games and would not reveal who or exactly why. It was a disconcerting move considering the organization had also recently done away with a previous rule that allowed fighters and their teams to appeal disputed decisions.

Minutes after suffering one of the most controversial defeats in Rio, Irish bantamweight Michael Conlan delivered a memorable scathing rant to television viewers. "That's the end of my Olympic gold. My dream has been shattered now," he said. "AIBA cheats, they're paying everybody... Amateur boxing stinks, from the core right to the top."

Oddly enough, though Olympic boxing may have been more popular and perhaps more meaningful to the pro ranks in years past, like the sport in general it may never have been all that honorable. In the 1904 Games, one fighter was disqualified after pretending to be someone else, and another was retroactively punished for fighting under a pseudonym, which was incredibly common in pro boxing at the time. Perhaps Olympic boxing just never had a chance to be legit. 

One of the more unfortunate aspects of this year's Olympic boxing is that the women once again are footnotes compared to the goings on on men's boxing. It's a script most sports follow, and some of it was familiar: women were still made to don headgear by the AIBA despite their own investigative findings, and women still fought rounds that lasted two minutes rather than the men's three. 

There was something about this year that stung a little more, however. Two separate two-time gold medalists in Claressa Shields and Nicola Adams were crowned, and they still made fewer waves than male counterparts who had less success in the Games. It was a likely the most obvious sign that there's a lot of work to be done to bridge the gender gap in boxing. 

The last two Olympics were as much about attempting to reclaim past glory and making the boxing exciting again as they were about crowning the best and creating stars. It remains to be seen whether recent changes will have any effect on the sport's popularity in 2020 and 2024, but stars were almost never the problem. 

It would be impossible to prevent all cuts and facial injuries in boxing,and much of the research done on headgear and concussions suggests that fighters might be better off without them. Absent firm evidence either way, headgear takes a back seat to bunk scoring, bad officiating and a suspicious governing body. 

The truth is that, just like professional boxing, amateur boxing's popularity has ebbs and flows. Whether or not one causes the other is more difficult to prove, but as more money flows through the talons of the International Olympic Committee, there can be no doubt that bias will be unavoidable. 

For now, the best we can hope for is a glimpse of things to come. Thankfully if Nico Hernandez, Shakur Stevenson and Claressa Shields are the future, the future looks bright indeed.