Henry Wharton vs. Nicky Piper

I don't recall seeing him box before he fought Benn. I might have seen one of his fights before then but that fight was definitely the first time I really remember noticing him.

I remember watching Benn come up on Grandstand though. He was very exciting then.

His sixth fight, against a chubby Mexican. He goes right hand crazy here after seemingly injuring his left in the second round.

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The reason I thought it was Grandstand (and I was alluding to seeing a few of his really early fights on there) was because I swear I remember watching them in the afternoon on a Saturday. Did ITV used to broadcast boxing on Saturday afternoons sometimes too? My main recollection of watching boxing on that channel was at night - on The Big Fight Live. It's so long ago it's all a bit of a blur now.

I used to have a compilation video of his KOs on VHS. I think it was just his fights at MW, or at least most of them. The one I remember the most of all was when he fought a really goofy looking lanky guy who looked about as home in a boxing ring as pigeon in a cat sanctuary lol. I also had a VHS tape of his fight against Doug Dewitt that I bought too.

 

I must've seen them on there then. I remember World of Sport very well. D!ckie Davies was on TV for as far back as I can remember. I thought it was mainly football and other sports on there for some strange reason. Thing is I must've actually watched a lot of boxing on there but it's all blurred with time.

Watching this is a real blast from the past.

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I also remember Midweek Sport Special now that you mention it too. We used to get a lot of boxing on terrestrial TV before Sky came along.

Benn fought a lot of bums in the early days but he dispatched most of them in real eye catching fashion.

This is the goofy looking fellow I was talking about lol. Lovely punch to finish it though.

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Cheers. It's all coming back to me now. I don't recall Seconds Out though. But I'm sure I probably recognize it straight away if I saw the intro or heard the theme tune.

I remember the Tyson fights very well as I used to set my alarm to whatever time they were shown in middle of the night to get up watch them. It just goes to show you how popular he was back then when even school kids were waking up in the early hours to watch him fight. Quite a lot of my mates did it too.

I have very fond memories of watching The Big Fight Live. Just hearing the theme tune used to get my adrenaline flowing. I remember the broadcasts from the US too. I used to have quite a lot of the ones shown on delay on VHS. I actually still had them up until about five years ago.

 

Yeah, I'm positive I would've seen it. Strange that it seems to have slipped from my memory as I'm usually quite good at remembering stuff from way back. Seeing the logo does ring a bell though. I remember the Yeo fight from that Benn KO compilation video I bought.

Edit: After you mentioning Piper, I just did a search on Youtube because I knew one of his early fights was on there and sure enough (as you say) it was broadcast on Seconds Out. You can hear a bit of the show's theme tune at the beginning of the video. Yes, I definitely do remember it now.

Piper flattens his opponent with the first punch he throws in this one.

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I have Piper vs Maurice Core lying about somewhere, which was from the same year as the one above. I'll try and dig it up later and post it on here.