What made you a boxing fan?

Father and older brother.

Probably would’ve picked up on the sport on my own in due time - but due to the above influences, I knew a lot more about boxing than I ordinarily would at such a young age.

I also haven’t always strictly followed the sport during several periods of time.

 

Vitali, weirdly enough. I remember watching Lennox Lewis PPVs with my dad in the early 2000s, but wasn't particularly into boxing at the time as I was too young and it didn't have the dynamism of WWF, which appealed to my kiddy/young teen brain more. The Vitali-Lewis fight was the first one that I genuinely got into, though I didn't get hooked on boxing at that point yet.

Then it was only years later (late 2000s) that I thought 'what's that Klitschko guy up to?' and looked up his YouTube videos. His weird, dominant, lumbering style just fascinated me, then off the back of that one thing led to another and I got into boxing. I then watched Pacquiao dismantling everyone from Hatton onwards. Good times.

 

Being from New Zealand - Tua vs Cameron, 2009. You had to be there

 

My dad and I would watch the Thursday night fights from the Olympic Auditorium just about every week. Within a month or two, 8 year old me was hooked on boxing for life.

 

My Grandfather and his collection of old Boxing films, mostly Heavyweights, but he had some others, too. He was showing me old boxing films when I was three years old, maybe even before that. He had a way of speaking with me about the boxers, brave modern knights he called them. It was fascinating. That is how I got started as a boxing fan.

 

This wonderful story also explains you expertise and interest in the heavyweight division.

 

Watched John Tate pummel Kallie Knoetze on World of Sport. Became a huge Tate fan and been following boxing ever since.

 

Being the son of a boxer, being around boxing from early age, and with expectation i learned the manly art, i lay the blame squarely at the door of my Father.

Father has taken the final 10 count, but i remain a boxing fan, well that is when they actually fight rather than just talk.

 

I reckon it was in the space of 3 days back in February 1983 as a 9 year old kid watching Holmes v Cooney and then Barry Michael v Frank Ropis with my Dad. I was ****ing hooked ever since!

 

Cotto vs Pacquiao

 

Hagler/Leonard

Obviously I had seen Mike Tyson fight a lot on closed circuit and always thought of him as a monster. But watching Hagler Leonard, how Hagler went at him and Sugar's flurries is what made me actually pay attention to boxing.

I was in like 2nd/3rd grade trying to throw punches as fast as I could LOL

 

Earliest boxing memory (though I feel like I was aware of Ali-Frazier FOTC and Ali-Foreman) was watching Ali rematch Leon Spinks and regain his title (becoming the first man to do it three times). I was a big comic book and monster movie fan as a little kid so always liked to watch cartoonish fighting. I remember being initially disappointed there was so much clinching and it wasn't all outsized haymakers. I didn't watch much in the 80s sorry to say then Mike Tyson brought me in and a whole host of others my age (I'm 6 months older than Iron Mike himself). Going over to some guy's house who got the PPV to watch one of Tyson's one-round KO's then all the guys going out on the front lawn trying to punch each other like we just watched. I hosted the party for Holyfield-Tyson I and it remains one of my favorite boxing memories, the ripple of excitement and disbelief that tore through all of us as that fight progressed.

ESB crystallized my fandom. Will this be my 20-year mark on this site? No way, couldn't be. When I first logged on here, the Lewis Vitali TKO 6 threads raged through here like a forest fire. As much as the sport of boxing has declined in the 21st century, ESB especially and other online sites have elevated the art of ****-talking about boxing to a golden age.

 

Watching Ali in the 70's, then not long after that Leonard. ABC Wide World of Sports, NBC Sportsworld, and CBS Sports Spectacular on the weekends, back when boxing was mainstream and you could watch a great, quality fight on a Saturday afternoon for free.