Boxing needs print magazines

First thing I would do with a new issue of Ring would be to read the results in that month’s issue and then the tiny-type reports from cards around the world.

I remember reading about this prospect in Connecticut for months and months before he made his TV debut — guy named Marlon Starling. Or you’d see some foreign heavyweight start to get some wins over faded but name fighters, like one a month, and track his progress. I remember seeing Charlie Weir chalking up meaningful wins over solid but not quite contender guys issue after issue and thinking the South African was going to break through in a big way (spoiler: he didn’t). Or Nino LaRocca’s odd rise and fall.

 

If they do yearly "big books" they might do okay. But weekly and monthly magazines are done. People like physical media but they aren't going to pay for it frequently it needs to be a rare purchase.

 

I know Jack Obermayer (along with someone else, kind of his boxing buddy) traveled to cards large and small across the country on his own dime most of the time. He was just ‘that guy.’ He came to one of our club shows — called in advance, said he’d never been to a card in our state and wanted to come. He was very kind and said he liked what we were doing. A lot of our bouts were ‘opponent vs opponent’ types where we’d match like a 3-5 guy vs at 6-17-1 guy knowing their styles would make a good, competitive fight — and one of them would get a win which helped keep them viable for getting money fights on the road or in casinos. Our guys we matched as the ‘A’ side (on our little club shows) but each card always one or two guys had to step up and fight someone challenging.

Anyway, he said he was tired of shows where you knew who was going to win every fight before the bell, and all the red corner guys would win every fight against the ‘opponent’ blue corner guys or whatever.

 

The Ring was doing larger commemorative books themed on specific (popular and well-known) fighters for a while, may still be doing that, one ones focused on ATG fights maybe. The Larry Holmes book was really good. They got Gerry Cooney to write the intro, which was pretty cool.

 

The 70's and 80's were a fantastic time to be a boxing fan , there was so much action for magazines to write about

 

Yes they were brilliant.
I got em all, but not seen any new ones for a while.

 

It´s more about Boxing being done. Magazines still exist and even sports like Golf have them printed in circulation still. To people that are in denial about Boxing being dead, that is a good indication.

 

I agree.