Boxing - When & Why

The uncertainty of it all , some can predict the outcome to a tee almost every fight ,,,Almost being the key word here though ,from the old timer rolling back the years to a Young fighter winning a bout that he had no business being in let alone winning ,yea it's the uncertainty of it all for me ,no sport comes even close , these days when you have all these pudding heavyweights all it takes is for one to go on a Tyson sort of rampage and boxing becomes the Greatest show on earth again in a blink of an eye .

 

Geez,, when did it start. Well I learned to swim in Junee when I was about 5 & I could name most of the fighters we had in this photo album we had. Every other page had a glossy 12"x10" picture of past & present greats.
Darcy, Sands, Richards, Hennebery, Patrick etc.
That was about 1947.
When we moved to the coast, I was aloowed to stay up late on Monday nights & listen to the radio broadcast from Sydney. 2KY I think it was.
Dad used to take me to Sydney markets to buy fruit, which I sold door to door. I was about 9-10 & there were a lot of fighters working there. Dad had a fruit barrow before we moved to Junee so he knew a lot of the blokes.
They were great people. They would fun/spar with me & let me "Knock them out"

Went to Police boys at North 'Gong from about 13 until I left school @ 9am on the 25th of April 1957. I was 14 & 10 months & couldn't get out of the ****en place quick enough (Much to my regret later):|

I think the first fight I went to would have probably been local blokes Jock or Max Murphy in the mid 50's

Old **** ain't I?

 

The Spanish lessons are free with every Mandy PPV...

 

I was waiting for you to show up in this thread , Nice one Rodin ..:good

 

Great post mate...:good

The profile will take care of itself....it's a generational thing I reckon.
Another Fenech or Tszu will come along and off we go again...

 

The same thing that I loved wandering through gyms.
Looking for that special natural "It"

Watching kids boxing or just going through training. Just the science of it.
Looking at their feet, their shoulders. Rolling behind punches, the snap in their wrists etc.
I was at a gym about 18 months ago & a kid about 14 was working with the floor to cailing bag. He never missed it. Great hands. loafed from side to side & belted it all over the place.
I was sitting on an old couch & the trainer came over & I said "Mate,,who is THAT!" pointing to the kid as he wandered off & got on the rope.
He rolled his eyes. "Forget him. He won't fight, he just trains"
"Why?"
He patted his heart & winked. (No ticker)
Made me glad I never took up the bucket.

 

I often ask myself this and it's so hard to pin down. Like someone said the "anything can happen" nature of it is what makes it so thrilling, but it's not why I watch. As a kid I guess it was like watching real Heroes. With fewer belts and longer paths to them holding one really meant alot. Seeing a guy beat one after the other is just incredible... All that applied time and dedication, training and conditioning, then to actually see them go in there and put it on the line. Just demands the ultimate respect.

It's just the best!

 

Pork chop , Don't worry mate the gyms are teaming with kids over here all wanting to be the next Calzaghe and fingers crossed young Nathan Cleverly can win at that sort of level within the next 2-3 years to give them another to aspire to .

 

Good thread concept Rooster - will scratch the head a bit and hopefully offer something soon.

 

Yeah I guess I'm just being impatient

I will always watch boxing with superstars or not. I guess it's just that we've been pretty spoilt for the last 15 or so years, definitely with highs and lows and in comparison to that time period the immediate future is one of those lulls.

I think the whole '0' on te record fascination has alot to do with it too. Having an 0 shouldn't mean as much as it does today. So many fighters with 0's careers are too scrutinized and those with out one are too hastily dismissed as not good enough.

 

When you think back to around 5 years ago a whole heap of blokes were winning a belt and making useless defences of it as a living , then came the UFC and the likes and these blokes promoters realised they had to actually start fighting other decent blokes in their division to survive ,Super middle was a classic example with Joe just defending his WBO title and the likes of Ottke defending his trinket in Germany , Beyer ,Kessler etc (thats the way the sport headed ) then they all started out on unification trails (except Ottke) now we have the Super six because these type of fights ie kess v Cal , Kess v Beyer , Cal v Lacy etc reignited the interest in the division ,its no coincidence the super six is taking place at 168lbs its just a continuation of what Joe managed ie unification ,people wanted to see who was the best when he retired so the comp ensued .

 

:good:happy