Just a quick question - me and some mates were debating the overall coverage of boxing on Sky Sports a couple of days ago, and would be interested to hear the views of others on the subject. My take would be as follows: 1. The studio coverage and commentary is fine. 2. The ring announcers are ****. 3. The standard of fights ain't great - more bigger fights are needed IMO. 4. The venues aren't brilliant. Your thoughts please.
I def agree with 3, some (most?) of the fights wouldn't excite a dedicated boxing fan let alone a general sports fan.
I think the problem is that most of our domestic champions are fighters that are on a level, rather than guys on their way to bigger and better things. Most of our current world champions didn't even win a Lonsdale belt, which is shite really. IMO, the BBBC shouldn't sanction a title fight for a guy who hasn't even become national champion. That would hopefully put an end to all these inter-alphabetty fights that we keep seeing - the one thing Mick Hennessy does say that I actually agree with.
The problem is the boxer/ promotor would threaten the BBBofC with the European Court and it would have to back down. Its how Frank Warren got going, the BBBofC used to have a ruling that there could only be 1 major card in London each month to avoid big fights clashing. All Duff, Astaire etc used to do was to book a major venue for each month well in advance and announce a major card to stop anyone else doing it....until Frank Warren came along and threatened the BBBofC with retstraint of trade, the BBBof C knew they din't have a leg to stand on and the matter didn't even get to court.
I think blocking events is wrong, and could be seen as a restraint of trade, you are right! It just really bugs me, this WBA International Belt, or WBO Intercontinental Belt bollocks, and then the others, WBU, WBF, IBC etc ****ing shite! You get a guy like McAllister claiming he is a two weight world champion, saying he will go down in history as one of the greats. That said, they have all done it - Hatton, Witter, Khan etc winning stupid pieces of leather. I just wish we could get back to proper titles!
Nah I totally dis agree with you. I love the fact Sky show alot of the domestic fights and British and Commenwealth title fights. So what if the competitors are not on their way to a better level. These fights are sometimes the only time I will get to see alot of our domestic fighters. If last Fridays fight between Bell and Edwards was not on in my own town I would have stayed in and watched it on Sky. If the fight was held in Stoke and not on Sky I would have never seen the fight and may have never seen either of these two lads fight, ever. The fact that Sky are now not showing guys who hold a WBU or IBO belt is maybe a good thing but I would never turn down the chance to see a boxing fight of any kind. The could just show the very small hall fight cards with the real lower end boxers and kids making their debuts for me. Setanta and Sky are now showing most of the top fights from abroad, mostly delayed but we still get to see them. It is a real travesty when a British world champion is not shown live but how often does that happen? It is really important that terrestrial tv starts putting on alot more boxing, both big and small fights. On to your other points. 1. Yep. Most of the studio work is fine. I even do not mind Bunce going off on one about something stupid, he is entertaining and loves the sport. 2. The ring announcers are ok. I like the bloke who does the "Bev/Kev" advert most but the rest are fine. Who apart from the twp Buffers are better than our current crop and what standard do you expect? 4. Apart from someone building a Roman colluseum or a fight televised from Stonehenge I can not expect anything better to be done about the standard of venue's. The big venues's such as 02, Millenium Stadium and Wembly are fine and a great place to tell people you went to see boxing there. I enjoy going to smaller venues around Yorkshire. The Metrodome in Barnsley has good seating and viewing which is all you can really ask for. I too enjoy the Octagon at Sheffield and various other places, as long as you have a decent view you can not really ask for anything more. What improvements would you make to rectify your problems listed?
I agree, there used to be nice progression. British title, make a few defenses on to the European and a top 10 world ranking and then look at fighting a top Yank for Latin fighter. Maybe pick the Commonweath up along the way. Its the Commonweath title thats really suffering in this country with all the Intercontinenal BS.
i enjoy some of the little domestic fights they show on sky. thats like the "bread and butter" of british boxing. if they just showed big fights i wouldn't be able to watch boxing every week. and its also pretty cool getting to watch some of the up-and-coming undercard fighters coming through and see how they are progressing.
