hold the ring

present singular third person holds the ring · participle present holding the ring · participle past held the ring · past held the ring

1. obsoleteentertainmentTo maintain order among spectators encircling participants in a prizefight or a performance and keep them from coming too near the participants.

   Synonyms: keep the ring

2. To be a spectator at a fight; (figuratively) to watch other people argue.
3. UKidiomaticTo oversee a situation while attempting to remain uninvolved in it.

   Police held the ring during the protests.

   4 more examples

   In England a century earlier it had been a struggle between two warring houses, in France it was now a struggle between three: Guise, Montmorency and Bourbon, with the feeble government of Catherine de Medici vainly trying to hold the ring.

   1968, J. Hurstfield, “Social Structure, Office-holding and Politics, Chiefly in Western Europe”, in R[ichard] B[ruce] Wernham, editor, The New Cambridge Modern History, volumes III (The Counter-Reformation and Price Revolution 1559–1610), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, page 132

   While this debate was going on in Nature another was being conduct in Archaeometry. This was between Betancourt – and his old colleague Michael – and Warren, with the English archaeometrist M. J. Aitken holding the ring.

   1991, Martin [Gardiner] Bernal, “The Thera Eruption: From the Aegean to China”, in Black Athena: The Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilization, volumes II (The Archaeological and Documentary Evidence), New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, →ISBN, page 288

   It is the great powers that create international upheavals. In 1912–13 the Balkan powers fought two bitter wars among themselves, while the great powers held the ring.

   2002, Martin Wight, “International Anarchy”, in Hedley Bull, Carsten Holbraad, editors, Power Politics, →ISBN, page 100

   Lieutenant-General Fry says that coalition forces will continue military operations "to separate the two sides of the sectarian conflict" but that such operations were meant to hold the ring until the politicians come up with a solution.

   2006 August 31, “Holding the ring in the capital: Embedded with American troops in a volatile district, our correspondent asks how long they can prevent an all-out sectarian war”, in The Economist, archived from the original on 06 Mar 2016

4. hobbiesOf a prizefighter: to hold one's own during a fight; to continue winning a series of fights.