I was watching a Joe Frazier documentary last night and Thomas Hauser outlined the three biggest boxing events that transcended the sport: Jack Johnson v Jim Jeffries (great white hope) Joe Louis v Max Schelling (Nazi Germany historical context) Muhammad Ali v Joe Frazier 1 (most watched fight of all time) The above are three boxing events that transcended boxing on a world scale. My question is what are your top three picks for biggest boxing events, from a British or Irish perspective, that transcended boxing and why?
McGuigan-Pedroza I assume? Hatton-Mayweather certainly in recent times. Maybe, Eubank-Benn on ITV too
Turpin v Robinson Benn v Eubank Mayweather v Hatton Lewis v Tyson Bruno v Tyson McGuigan v Pedroza Fitz v Corbett all have to be considered On a different note I reckon Eubank/Watson and Benn/McClellen are up there for entirely different reasons.
Harrison - Haye Chisora - Haye Valuev - Haye Klitschko - Haye Not saying they were the biggest I might add, but all transcended the sport for sure.
Hatton vs Mayweather recently. Haye vs Klitschko could have done had Haye not being such a boring, predictable **** in the build up, and then not delivering in the ring. Still, it wasn't anywhere near Ricky vs Floyd though. Even people who never watched boxing at all were talking about it for weeks beforehand.
The three that stand out for me are: McGuigan - Pedrosa Bruno - Tyson 1 - mega fight, every talk show, paper, radio, TV station were on that. Bruno even made an appearance on the Johnny Carson show. Hatton-Mayweather - crazy amount of PPV buys for a fight at 5am UK time, wall to wall media for that fight, both unbeaten records etc
Yep you're right there. A mate who has no interest in boxing insisted he was having it on in his gaff cos it was ppv in the early hours and a pub wasn't possible. Even though I was the boxing nut amongst them at that time I had by far the least interest in it. The others were getting all worked up but I was ****in bored out of my skull. There's not much excitement when you know the outcome isn't even in question and you're not even in a pub. When the infinitely more gifted fighter is also the bigger and stronger fighter then all bets are off. That fight highlighted the benefits of mindless hype
Yeah Turpin v Robinson has to be in top three or four, there was a blaze of publicity for that, Robinson couldnt even stay in a hotel in London due to the media attention and ended up in some hole b&b above a pub just because it was in a quiet area and the big London hotels wouldnt have him due to the intense media attention that it brought to the hotel.
Not to mention the riot after the fight, disgraceful scenes. Arum vowed he would never return to Britain for a fight after it.
no uk fight has ever transcended sport in the way those three fights have, in terms of live and tv viewing figures benn v eubank II is the biggest in recent times. christie v kaylor hit the front pages of all the tabloids and that whole fight retrospectively encapsulates two of the biggest issues of that time, race and football hooliganism so on a smaller national not international scale i guess that transcended the sport.
