i was thinking back to the first fight that made me a boxing fan for life. after a while i remember back to the fight between julio cesar chavez who was 89-0-1 and was fighting frankie 'the surgeon' randall. this fight was supposed to be an easy win for chavez as he went on to reach 100 fights undefeated. how wrong was he!! randall out boxed him and deserved the victory over him. the one thing i still remember is the excitement i felt during the fight and the adrenalin keeping me up to watch it till the end, i was 14 and the fight was on about 3am. i'd like to hear your story's from the first fight you watched that made you a boxing fan for life. thanks in advance for any posts
probably Lewis vs Holyfield 1. Wasn't a classic but I remember staying up to 5am when I was a kid and being so excited and being the only person as football the next day that new what happend. 9am kick off....still scored 2 goals!!!
benn vs mclellan. i was about the same age as you, i remember reading articles in the papers in the week leading up to the fight and coming to the conclusion that this fight was going to be close, but as a kid who wasnt really clued up on boxing i had no doubt in my mind that benn was going to win, even tho many pundits & experts suggested otherwise. "benn'll well beat him, ive never even heard of him" i said to my brother. i'd never heard of him then but after that fight his name is one that will stay firmly in my mind for the rest of my life when i think of boxing as a whole. in the first round when mclellan put benn through the ropes, i can recall willing benn on to get up and beat the count (a generous count at that). watching him not only struggle to try and survive, but then go on to take control of a fight the way he did was absolutely awe inspiring & i will never forget it for as long as i live. i'll also never forget the concern the commentators felt towards mclellan late on when he was blinking uncontrolably & when the fight finally came to an end i remember mclellan was in a bad way on the canvas as benn was getting interviewed, they were trying to tell benn about the seriousness of the g-mans condition but benn who was so pissed off with everyone who had written off his chances of beating mclellan refused to let them finish, instead telling them to "listen to me" i was shouting at the TV to tell him to shut up & listen because i wanted him to know the seriousness of what was happening around him. and thats basically the way i felt at the time, i wasnt a big boxing fan then and i didnt realise just how highly rated and powerful gerald mclellan was. i often still read up on past articles i can find online & i have different views now to what i had then but one thing will always remain the same for me & that is i will always remember that fight for the rest of my life.
It's Benn-Mclellan I remember. Not sure it made me a fan - my dad was a huge fan already. He died when I was young though, but years later when I was back from uni, I started looking into the sport again. Probably wasn't till Calzaghe-Lacy that I really started following the sport properly.
Watching Barry beating Pedroza at Loftus Road. "McGuigan hasn't quite found the range........Oh but he has, he's got him with a right!" My new found thirst for boxing was taken care of by Bomber Graham, Pyatt, Honeygan, Bruno and the fighting fireman Terry Marsh.
i have to agree ITV got it right back then. i enjoy the boxing on sky but would still like ITV to start doing it properly again with some up and coming fighters
Hagler - Leonard was the first fight I remember seeing and I've been hooked ever since. The fight I look back on as being the most dramatic, jump out of your seat exciting (and unfortunately tragic) fight is Benn - McClellan The fight that gave me the pre fight buzz the most was Lewis Tyson, closely followed by Hatton Mayweather. My favourite sport, bar none
Earliest memory of watching boxing was watching Bruno fights with my old man. I remember havin an awful fever the night of Bruno-Tyson II. My old man put me to bed early and I apparently came out of my room crying in hysterics saying how Bruno had lost and I was in a flood a tears, I was taken back to bed as I was pointin at the TV (which was off), saying "Look! Brunos lost!". I was hysterical, and the fight hadn't even happened yet! I used to have weird dreams/hallucinations when I was young and had a fever. I think it was Lewis-Tyson that got me properly into boxing. Calzaghe-Lacy was when I became a 'hardcore' fan.
my uncle was always a massive tyson fan he flew to c him against holmes and i was born on the day of the tyson spinks fight so i take it i was a born tyson fan, apparently i watched the mcneeley and buster mathis fights when he got out of prison but i cant remember but tyson bruno 2 i rememebr very well as my parents were supporting bruno and they woke me up atl ike 4am to watch it after then it was on.......
Can't really say one fight made me a fan. I was always a fan of boxing tbh, as i grew up in a household where boxing was everywhere.