How long have you been following the sport?

Thanks Sir, i'm feeling old already

 

Darn Red, you and I are 'dialed in'! Movies, boxing, baseball, etc. I guess (most folks) would say they love their era but...the 60's, when we were teens, was a boxing 'Mecca'. Every Saturday! football in the field with buds, back home for WWofSports boxing. A day seemed longer than 24 hours; so much going on!

 

I still watch a lot. I've noticed that if you started following boxing in the 1970s/1980s that you tend to like the heavyweights more so than other divisions. (I know I do.) So if there's a heavyweight on a card, I make sure to watch it. If there's not, I might skip it.

If it's a card with a lot of fighters below bantamweight, I'm usually not interested at all unless it is a big name. If they are just some young guys coming up, I'll probably pass. After spending 40 years watching tens of thousands of people who never make it, you kind of naturally start tuning them out if they look like non-descript fighters.

I've noticed guys who started following boxing in the mid to late 90s up until a few years ago tend to like the smaller guys more because those boxers were the bigger stars when they started following the sport. And they are also the fans who rip on the heavyweight division a lot, because it was ridiculed when they were coming up and they don't really remember a time when the heavyweights had the biggest stars and how that elevates the sport among mainstream sports fans.

But I just can't get into the smaller fighters as much.

If you've gone to live fights, and seen the smaller guys close up, they are REALLY small. Boxing on TV tends to make everyone the same size. No matter who is boxing, they fill up the same amount of screen. If you go to fights, it's much more exciting to see two giants in there wailing away than seeing to guys the size of grade schoolers hitting each other. And meeting actual heavyweight champs in person is still a big deal to me.

Anyway, I do still follow the sport. But I don't watch every card.

 

I started watching boxing at the start of the 80`s, I`m 41 and I was 4 years old when I watched Hagler defeat Alan Minter in winning the middleweight title, I watched most of the fantastic four bout and saw the birth of Tyson`s era as a world champ vs Berbick when I saw the funky chicken dance! I started collecting boxing magazines in 1989 and the 90`s were the best era in terms of excitment, I`m British and you had overrated but exciting personalities like Naz, Benn and Eubank, but Bruno V Lewis was great not for the fighting but the atmosphere was amazing, I feel if Lewis had of used his signature uppercut before the round where the fight ended Bruno would have been exposed as a fraud sooner! Just started getting back into boxing after the AJ v Wlad spectacular and things are looking up.

 

For me, personally, right now is the best of times!

As I've mentioned earlier, I started getting into boxing in the early '60. Back then my window to the boxing world was The Ring, Boxing Illustrated, Boxing News, etc... every boxing magazine I could get my hands on!

I'm from a country (Denmark) where boxing wasn't seen as "suitable" entertainment, when I grew up, and therefore was NEVER shown on TV. For years and years, I could only dream of one day being able to catch a glimpse of Olivares, Locche, Napoles and the rest of the fine fighters, I could only read about.

Today it's an entirely different story! Now I'm able to watch most of the big shows from around the world, live via a Scandinavian sports channel, which I pay an extra monthly $28 (approx.) to have included in my cable package. Each weekend we get the biggest shows from the UK, US, Germany, Monaco - or wherever things are going on. And if I'm missing something, I can usually watch it the following morning on YouTube. Yes, life as a passionate boxing fan was never before this good!

 

Followed boxing on and off in patches since I was a kid in the 90's watching Prince Naz. Only started watching old fights on youtube and looking into boxing history after I found this forum (which is the only forum/social media I have ever used) a couple years back whilst looking for betting tips from boxing nerds. I'm kind of an imposter here considering everybody else here has encyclopediac knowledge of the sport and lives and breathes boxing (sometimes there will be discussion about some 'ATG' and I have to google his name ) and/or has experience competing or training.

2017 has been a terrific year for boxing, I don't understand the doom and gloom concerning the modern era.

 

This is refreshing to hear. Boxing is in a great place right now with a bright future in my opinion.

 

Couldn't agree more! All this "boxing is dead, boxing has devolved, I barely follow it anymore, etc., etc."... I just don't get it!

 

Good to see a fair number here are actually ancients like me

 

About 12 years actually following it, but I was a Tyson and Roy fanboy as a kid

 

Here’s a secret: We all have boxrec open on an alternate tab.

There are some guys here with an encyclopedic knowledge of Boxing to envy.

 

I grew up in a family that thrived on fighting and violence, on both sides of the family they were all boxers and everything I between. The very earliest fights I recall was the Hagler vs SRL fights as a kid.

Didn't actually get a opposite point of view with my dad until Foreman fought Cooney when I didn't know much but told my dad Foreman would fight Tyson one day and was laughed at , at the age of 16.

Of course that never happened but no one in my FAM saw the threat he was like I did. Of course I was proven right in his career in the Holyfield fight Moorer years later.

I watch countless/ hundreds of vids of all fighting weekly and that's why I know what I'm talking about and have a second intuition on fighting...lol