To all our friends on here from the UK, what is your take on Steve Bunce? Is he Boxing Bard or Blowhard? I have seen a lot of his articles and a few of the shows he hosted (does he still do Bunce's Boxing Hour or was it called Bunce on Boxing??) I would read or hear things he would get wrong but there was a blue-collar appeal to him that I liked in his musings. Anyway, what is the opinion of the guys here?
His knowledge is very good. He knows his stuff. He loves boxing. He shouts too much and has been known to shamelessly hype some poor fights because 'it's showbusiness'. But he's someone who knows boxing and started off reporting boxing back in the day on the newspapers in the 1970s, when the game was more real. I often found him interesting at times but a bit grating at times, and even a blowhard to some extent, he was no Reg or Harry (Gutteridge and Carpenter) ......... but nowadays on broadcast what we get is some pretty blonde bird given a micrphone to put in the face of some ex-boxer she clearly hasn't got a clue who they are. A slightly better-informed female in the studio doing ordinary punditry, and a bunch of bland fellas who are similarly under-informed about boxing, and not even nice to look at. None of the civilian pundits have paid their dues like Bunce did.
Decent writer. Quite knowledgeable and very passionate. Horrendous presenter who absolutely should not be on TV. Talks like he's choking up a pub lunch. Guy is comedy gold though. This clip would send socials nuclear now lol. Although he is still far superior to GAD which is saying something. This content is protected
F*cking nora you couldn't write that clip I'd forgotten about it. It about sums Bunce up going from something like that to the surprisingly good obituary of Alan Rudkin that he wrote in the Independent when three quarters of the thick as pig**** British media had no clue who Rudkin was. Like rough says, capable of being very good in print, and one of the few old schoolers who learnt his craft from the 70s onwards and worked his way from small shows into the mainstream the hard way. In front of a camera though he makes Terry Flanagan sound like John Gielgud. Really ****ing disconcerting sausage fingers too, like something off an episode of 70s Doctor Who.
It was probably around this time I went right off Bunce. He had all the tact of a falling cinderblock.
