Boxer Paul Ingle was continuing to fight for his life today - amid renewed calls for the sport to be banned.

The 28-year-old fighter, from Scarborough, was "critical but stable" in hospital following his IBF featherweight title fight with South Africa's Mbulelo Botile at the Sheffield Arena on Saturday night.

The defeated champion was on the operating table at Sheffield's Royal Hallamshire Hospital within 45 minutes of his 12th round collapse, said promoter Frank Warren.

Consultant neurosurgeon Robert Battersby, who carried out the operation to remove a blood clot from the fighter's brain, said he was "making satisfactory progress".

He said: "He is receiving expert care and his condition will continue to be monitored closely. Paul now needs time and space to recover from his traumatic injury."

Paul Flynn, Labour MP for Newport West, said he intended to pursue his efforts to ban head blows. A Parliamentary Bill is expected next year.

"Boxing is unique in encouraging blows to the head," he said.

"A boxer can receive hundreds of blows to the head in a single bout.

"One neurosurgeon has claimed that 80 per cent of all boxers have brain scarring as a result of the cumulative effects of blows."

He said the Bill was not seeking to ban boxing but to "outlaw blows to the head in the same way that blows below the waist are banned now", allowing the sport to continue "without the carnage".

A spokeswoman also voiced the British Medical Association's long-standing opposition to the sport.

"The BMA finds it impossible to justify deliberately causing damage to the brain and the eye. The effects are cumulative so the more often you fight the more chance you have of being injured.

"We would ultimately like to see it banned but it will only happen if there's a change in the law and in public opinion.

"What we tend to see in cases like these is more people are turned off boxing and that's what it will take to see it banned," she said.

Sports minister Kate Hoey, a strong supporter of boxing, declined to comment on its safety, and her spokesman said she had not seen the fight and did not want to pass judgment.

The Boxing Board of Control will hold an inquiry into the incident.

Simon Block, general secretary of the regulatory body, said injury was an inherent part of the sport.

"To say it should be banned when there are far more dangerous sports out there is ridiculous," he said.

"I didn't hear much from the BMA when five people died three-day eventing. That is a very dangerous sport.

"This is something that always comes up after an incident like this but there's no intellectual or scientific evidence to back it up."

Mr Block said much has been done to improve the safety for fighters in the past ten years.

But he said: "Boxing is a dangerous sport. There are short-term and long-term dangers and they will never be eliminated."

Ingle's family were at his bedside last night after doctors put him into a "drug-induced" coma so that he could not move his head.

* Should boxing be banned? E-mail your views to: martin.jarred@ycp.co.uk