I watched both of them last night and they were excellent behind the scenes documentaries in that era. I thought it was interesting to see the attention to detail of the promoter, Jervais Astaire in the Bugner documentary. Plus, he looked right down his nose at that German journalist who showed looking for a press credential - I actually felt bad for the guy. And the gym work, training footage of Billy Walker was great. Apparently Billy Walker made a lot of money in his day, even though he never challenged for a title. 20 million people watched Billy Walker fight on terrestial TV. And it was interesting to hear the statistics of there being 2000 registered fighters in Britain in 1960, and only 600 fighters in 1964 or 1966 - i.e. the effect of closed circuit television on the boxing.
Did you watch the old heavyweight fights on Boxnation before that, it was a good watch. Jaysus Bruno fought some stiffs in his day, I was reading some of the old Boxing News mags and Harry Mullin used to slate quite a few of those ridiculous Bruno match ups....
I watched the Billy Walker doc but missed the Joe Bugner which i'll no doubt catch up on. Yes it was riviting watching that time capsule. I'am of an age that can recall it all, i was a kid at the time & what struck home most was the polite conservative/formal manner in which everyone addressed each question & each other. That was always the order of the day as too appear when in public to be able too appear polite conservative humble & respectfull thus giving the impression to all & any that we lived in a well fed, well educated, well housed green & pleasant land juxtaposed with the reality of gangland wars & outside shithouses & bread & jam as a main meal. I loved the way Harry Levine ( I think) was sat in his smoking jacket & stating that "We don't make alot of money like the boxers but we make a little & we are happy with that" But it was that clip of Terry Downs when he was talking to Billy Walker that made me laugh, yer can see that he was an absolute don't give a flying **** full-on animal George Walker was the ££££ brains & he went on to be a property mogal in London & had the BRENT/WALKER group which had most of the boozers in london tied up. But he got ****ed over by the banks in the early 90's i think as he'd bought Corals or William Hills at the top end of the boom & when the crash came the banks downgraded the value his property portfolio which he used as security for the purchase of the bookies so the banks demanded more security & so thats how they made their move to oust him & steal his empire which they broke up & made themselves a pile £££ as thats what shitbag banks do once you've placed yer nuts into the palms of their hands they can't resist a squeeze then a tug then rip-em off yer. Nice bit on the small hall promoter from Leicester when he showed his books & how much in & how much out. Yeh it was a good look back as to how things looked to be in the early 60's but i expect that there's a few more here on ESB that could also shed more light on the actual reality with regards to the image projected by that profile.
Lawless/Duff & co had it all carved up with the BBC... Go to 8.20 & thats when they **** their pants [ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xp1odQQ6N7E[/ame]
