Do you miss buying magazines? What happened to your collection?

I used to love buying the magazines...I bought them avidly as a matter of fact. I was at Books A Million the other day and spied a Ring Magazine....the other ones have just disappeared. I glanced at it, and decided not to buy it....it just seemed so glossy and superficial, Not enough substance like in the good old days.Very sad really.

 

If Ring could change owners, and have an emphasis on the classic side of the sport,....like a "whatever happened to..." type of thing. Maybe reprinting old articles by really good writers of the past.In fact, if a 100% classic magazine could be published,...doesn't have to be the Ring,...I'd snap it up every issue. Classic content is really the only reason in on board at ESB, and CHB, to be honest.

 

Started subscribing to Ring back in 1970 at 11 years old. FOTC made me a huge fan. Subscibed for about 15 years or so, bought a lot of the other ones of the era. Don't know what happened to them, but I have been picking up all the ones I used to have off ebay the last few years. Always big lots of old boxing mags on there for reasonable prices (I only pay maybe $3 tops per mag) Probably have close to 1500 of them sitting in big plastic tubs, just love reading them when I am sitting around. Have been subscribing to Ring for the last 6-7 years or so and I love the current version. Nice mix of current stuff and always a little classic in there. I know it is popular to bash the mag on here but I love it and look forward to it every month, well only 9 months per year now. Can get really cheap subscriptions on discount mag sites. . Actually am waiting on a batch of 80's World Boxing mags right now.

 

I have about 50 in a box in my bedroom closet.

I found a another box full when we cleaned out my dad's house last year. I think that box is in storage

I know this doesn't come close to representing what I once had. Many moves through the years, college, etc. I definitely lost many.

I wish I had kept them in better condition.

I have Boxing Illustrated, KO, Ring, Big Book of Boxing, World Boxing, International Boxing. I actually like the writing of the Ring from the 1980's, before the publishers of KO took it over.

Do they still sell boxing mags at news stands. They still did a few years ago. I can't remember the last time I saw one at a magazine section of any store.

I'll never forget the day I stumbled upon KO Magazine in early 1984 at the local People's Drug Store (Now CVS). That's when I started really getting into boxing. Hector Camacho was on the cover.

Story time:

Okay. So, once in awhile after school I would go to the local newsstand and read the Ring or KO for hours. Sometimes, the clerk would walk by and say "This isn't a library." LOL. Of course, I blew him/her off and kept reading. I only bought the mags. if I really had to. Most of the ones I bought were back issues I ordered by cutting out the ad. in the new boxing mag that I occasionally bought. That's how I caught up on the last few years when I first started really following boxing.

Also, I would come home after reading the mags. for hours. My eyes were somewhat bloodshot from the strain. Since I hadn't been home for many hours after school let out, when my Mom, may she RIP, would see me and my bloodshot eyes, she would exclaim, "Have you been smoking Pot." LOLLLL

 

Oh, man, back in the day the newsstand was loaded with Ring, Boxing Illustrated, World and International Boxing (which was the same exact magazine but with a different name from the Victory Sports series) and then of course I had to subscribe to Flash Gordon and Boxing News. Man, a boxing fan was like a kid in a candy store in those days. A friend of mine sent me a link to Jet magazine because they scanned and downloaded every edition onto the net. I mean every page is on there. I thought to myself, why can't Ring do the same. Maybe something with a bit of security if they like. Maybe you can enter the website by subscribing to the magazine. Man, that wold be win-win.

 

When the publishers of KO bought the Ring in 1990, they frequently published old Ring Articles.

Do they still own the Ring. I haven't been paying attention lately.

I remember when they moved from Rockville Centre, NY to the suburbs of Philadelphia.

 

Still have loads of them somewhere. I couldn't bring myself to part with them. A while back I did intend to scan them all onto the computer but it was so time consuming the idea just fizzled out in the end. I may get around to it eventually.

I'd love the Ring to do something like that. I'd happily pay a subscription to have access to all the old mags, or even better to download them.

 

I loved the ring mag, bought every issue for 2 years, but them the new championship policy kinda diluted the idea and whilst I get the point they wanted more champions it undoubtedly harmed the prestige of the belt.

For instance Cotto and Stevenson aren't really considered the best of their division despite having the belt.

I always had the niggling issue that the ring was too far behind website news.

The compound effect meant I just didn't buy it any more.

 

i have some in the attic and my man cave dating back to the 80's.i still buy the ring magazine and would buy boxing monthly if it was still sold locally.i also have a large amount of video's dating back to the 80's as well.

 

I started buying boxing mags in 1976, being inspired by the Olympic boxing team that year. I soon became hooked on the sport and bought every boxing mag I could find on the newsstand. From 1976 through the early 80's, I amassed quite a collection.

It seems like there were 4 or 5 different titles that came out monthly, with a few other publications that came out more erratically. I also occasionally ordered back issues. I remember ordering a back issue of a special edition of some mag that I can't remember the name that highlighted the first Liston-Clay fight that was published right before the fight. It was pretty neat, filled with articles and pictures of the two of them and of course, every expert polled for the fight picked Liston to win.

Around about 1994, I took out an ad in Sports Collector's Digest and sold every one of them in one big lot. There must have been a couple of hundred at least. I sold them for a hundred bucks, shipping included. It seemed like a good idea at the time but I have since regretted doing that. I kept only a couple of issues that published a couple of letters I wrote.