What is your favourite Boxing memory?

Live: Froch vs Bute

TV: Mosley vs Margarito

 

Around 2003 or 2004. I used to have a subscription to the ring and would read about recent fights. When I found decent sources to download fights, I was so happy. I was in highschool and couldnt afford to get ppvs so having access to a huge boxing library of past and recent fights was amazing and really made me transition from a casual to an educated boxing fan.

 

Tyson vs Bruno II......when Tyson falls to his knees in the middle of the ring

 

My favorite memories are definitely related to when I was a kid and first learning to box. I'll never forget the anxiety of my first match. I was about 12 or 13 years old and was fighting in a smoker against another kid that had already had a few fights. The place we were at was really small and we were both warming up in the back within 20 feet of each other--LOL. I remember watching him out of the corner of my eye hitting mitts with his coach and thinking oh ****, I am going to lose in front of all my family and friends. I'll never forget hearing my dad cheering for me as I entered the ring that day. The fight started and we both were just winging shots at the opening bell like we had never even trained before. By the 2nd round I had finally calmed down and starting doing the things that I had learned in the gym like using my jab and and extending my punches. I was taller than him and just kept pumping 1-2's over and over since it was the only thing that I really felt comfortable doing in a fight at that time as he kept winging overhand rights and left hooks. At the end of the match I remember thinking I had lost because it felt like I wasn't hitting him as hard as he was hitting me but it turned I had gotten the decision. I never forget how excited my dad was when we were driving home. We had steak dinners that night as a treat which became a tradition since it was always so awful trying to stay in my weight class. The smokers were always on Saturday mornings and we were always awarded steak on Saturday evenings afterwards.

I boxed all through my teenage years and into my twenties with some success on a regional level but by the time I was in my twenties, I knew I wasn't talented enough to go too far in the sport and having a good job and dating girls became the priority. Up until this knee surgery I just had right when the Covid outbreak started, I was still boxing at my local gym four or five days a week for fitness and stress relief but my competition days are definitely behind me now. All the old boxing gyms are closed now so I go to an MMA place and box along side a bunch of Wrestler/ Jujitsu guys but those memories of competition are the best memories of my life without question.

 

It was incredible mate

 

I have two big ones, the first is watching my first fight and I have no doubt I'll end up telling that one to some on here at some point of my life. However, it's the second 'big' memory which I really cherish.

Back when I got into boxing, the biggest advocates of this were my God-Mother, Dad and Grandad. The latter being the biggest fan. He'd talk to me about it non-stop every time we saw eachother, it was amazing. Just like many on here, he'd lived through the 70s/80s/90s and saw guys who we regularly talk about on here. He had 3 favourites, he loved a lot of boxers but there were 3 guys who he was absolutely adamant were his favourites (in any order). Saad Muhammad, Bernard Hopkins and Joe Frazier. These were the guys he'd sit and reminisce over, telling me about the great nights he had down in London, watching the fights with his Chelsea Hooligan pals. He told me that Frazier was the greatest HW he ever saw, and he could count the men who'd beat him, at his best, on hand. Ali wasn't among them. He'd tell me how he'd see Hopkins out-witting the likes of Toney and McCallum, and taking on the greats like Hagler and Monzon. But the one I liked the most was Saad Muhammad. I knew nothing of him back then, all I heard was that there was a mysterious man from Philly, who broke bones when he punched and always made it back to his feet. Hearing stories of wars that he'd get into willy-nilly was awesome. Only made better when I'd watched them myself.

The memory I'll never forget is the day before God took him, we chatted about what we normally did, and I impressed him with some of new things I'd picked up at the gym or some history I'd learned, and nothing was out of the ordinary. He told me to be a fighter, but not a real one. Take pride in what I did, be a respectable person who didn't quit or admit defeat. That's what a fighter was, not someone who punched people for fun. He laughed, and punched me in the arm.

He passed in 2018, but it's that treasured relationship, whxih I don't think I'll have again that really made my love for boxing flourish.

Sorry for the long post, I just started typing and didn't realize how long it'd become.

 

Seeing Ali ko Foreman while sitting in a theatre seat in Leicester Sq.
Being at the Barclays Center when Frampton beat De la Cruz.

 

Barrera owning Hamed was a very enjoyable night for me too!

 

A few. I’d saying attending the Marquez-Pacquaio IV fight and witnessing that KO. I’d followed Marquez for years, went to all of his fights from the Barrera fight in March 2007 (didn’t go to the Ramos & Senchenko tune-ups in MX), had the pleasure of meeting him a few times, going to Romanza Gym in Mexico City, hanging out in his hotel room before the Diaz fight in Houston etc; so beyond rooting for him as my favorite fighter, I actually got to see what a quality person he is and how much he put into boxing and how much he wanted Pacquaio on his official win record. That fight was great. I usually go to Vegas on the Friday morning before fights but since I’d just taken a trip a couple weeks before my company wanted me working the Friday so I flew into Vegas on the Friday morning.
Great day all around, but tried to cut the booze a few hours before the fight so as to be sober. I felt ecstatic in the third round with the knockdown, gutted by the end of the 5th and then the best feeling in boxing a round later.

Got absolutely trashed that night. Drink everything and had a really funny incident where I ended up losing my key, my phone died and they wouldn’t let me back in the club so I told the reception and I gave my name and went to bed and then the door opens and some dudes walk in and it turns out I was in there room. One guy said “Who the f**k are you?”, “Chris Smith! Who the f**k are you?”, I said. Then he said, “I’m Chris Smith”..Brilliant stuff.

Others were my first major live fight Trinidad-Mayorga at MSG. Got to meet Tito before the weigh-in and after the fight and what a classy guy he is. Attending Marquez-Barrera and Marquez-Diaz I are up there as was the greatest live fight I ever saw Vazquez-Marquez III even though my fighter lost it was such a privilege to have seen such a classic fight.

Trinidad-Vargas from TV was probably my favorite. I’d built myself up for this fight for so long and it exceeded expectations.