To those who grew up without constant footage to watch...

That is an odd desire

 

I got your point, I just don’t agree. Reflect, you’ll enjoy it more.

 

I grew up in a time (late 70 s) when there was very little available footage.
Every time you did see a classic clip for the first time it was unbelievably exciting.
It's great to have what we have now but I do miss that feeling of stumbling on to something new.

 

Wow you've only been a fan for a year? You are very knowledgeable for being a fan for such a short period of time!

 

Hi Sal.
Yes totally on board with the " anticipation " feeling, I started my love of boxing around 64, my old dad let me stay up and listen to a big fight on the radio, might have been Clay/Liston, and was completely hooked thereafter, couldn't wait for Friday to come, so I could get a bus to the only newsagents that sold Boxing News, every now and then it wasn't there, the chap in the shop used to put it on the 3rd shelf, second from right so I knew exactly where to focus my gaze, then the dreaded " sorry son, printing problems, come back Monday " thems were long weekends, my early favs was ( and still is ) Napoles, oh how pleased I was if he was featured in one of his defenses, was transfixed when the reporter described his languid smooth style, and the infrequent picture, black and white of course, showed him to be a nicely sculpted fighter, the drooping mexican moustache ( very vogue late 60s ) and the sloping shoulders of the true puncher, only added to my fascination, so you can imagine my excitement and delight, when ITV announced they were going to show highlights of his fight with Lewis, the 1st one, well I couldn't sleep the night before, the same feeling you have as a little boy on Xmas eve, woke up about 6am, the fight wasn't until 1pm, so I run some errands for my mum, went and picked up milk, bread, and some bacon, my dad loved a bacon sandwich for breakfast, only thing was the smell would linger for ages, we only had a small council flat, no toilet, no bath, no electric, what we did have was kind and helpful neighbours, feels like I am describing a dickenseing tale, anyway back from the local shops, frying pan on the go, all good.
Approaching 1, and I was getting the twitters, the tele had not been on until then, so when we did turn it on, the picture was wiggly and faded, then we enacted the usual ritual of me holding the ariel,and walking around the room till we got a better picture, finally with ariel balancing precariously on the tatty arm of the settee, we had a fairly good picture, so me on one side of the couch, and dad on the other the fighters were introduced to the crowd, and the fight commenced, thing was Napoles fought a good fight and won, but I was slightly underwhelmed, after waiting years to see him, and reading a forest about him, I was a tad disappointed, bit like Jaws in that the best part of the film was when you didn't see the shark, oh well, good thing was the smell of bacon was on the wain.
stay safe guys.

 

Terrific post.

See, that's the thing. THAT'S why it was so different then, our ability to absorb all this in just bits and pieces according to a rigid weekly or monthly schedule became part of this cadence our lives took on, and became interwoven to such a degree that it can't be separated from the rest of the peripheral stuff surrounding it. That's what made it special.

 

Today we have a great quantity of fights, but few quality. Most of the fighters
seen as "world class" today would've been no more than club fighters in
years past.
So yes access to fights is much easier in today's world, but few are really
worth watching.
But, boxing as a whole was very popular years ago. All the networks
usually carried world class fights between contenders or up and comers
that were seen as can't miss.
CBS, NBC , and ABC usually had weekend fights thirty -forty years ago and
older.
When cable television became popular in the 80's ESPN, and USA network
came with weekly fight programs like Tuesday and Thursday night fights
that usually were very competitive and meaningful.
The ease of watching a boxing program today isn't necessarily a good thing.
Most of the top fighters today are more about the money than the
competition and in general avoid each other, and tougher opponents.
A person like Jake Paul is a superstar and millionaire because of the ease of notoriety
from social media recognition and can demand equal pay as Mike Tyson , Even
an old well past it version of Tyson. That's insane in my opinion
and a definitive example of a sport on it's last legs.....
The one thing that's great today is the ease of access of fights that ARE
worth watching. Fights that are usually from thirty- forty years ago and older.

 

And the thing was, the ABC, NBC AND CBS fights on the weekend were really high quality. Not this club fight stuff we see on ESPN now, real world-class fighters, often unified titlists defending their crowns. I remember watching Jimmy Paul dethrone Harry Arroyo one February afternoon on CBS, then when that one was over I switched over to ABC to watch Donald Curry decimate Colin Jones in a welterweight title defense. And that was just in one afternoon. And there were YEARS of that kind of thing. It was amazing.

 

there was plenty of Boxing on TV and especially since the advent of Cable, giving birth to the likes of TSN, ESPN and then PPV. But it dates back to the 50s and was huge in the 70s.

the thing I miss most was Wide World of Sports, which had the ability of keeping you informed to the Top & Best Athletes in all Sport including Boxing's Big Fights.

Today, I wouldn't subscribe to a boxing Channel even if someone else paid for it, today's Boxing is a Mockery and Insulting in all of it's B.S Hype, especially here in the UK.

 

Speaking of Jake Paul and people like that.....I recently read a quote from (I think) Herbie Hancock regarding music today. He made a great observation that music is essentially dead today because people aren't interested in music per se; they're into WHO makes the music, more caught up in the celebrity aspect of it than the thing itself.

This phenomenon, in my opinion, is why we have someone like Jake Paul garnering such attention. The fact that he doesn't really know how to fight means nothing to those who follow him. It's the "show" aspect of it that is apparently more attractive today, and that's really, horrifically sad.

But, we as a society keep demanding this steady diet of empty carbs, and the machine feeds itself. Music or boxing, same thing.

 

Agreed.

 

Great attitude, way to go!

Amen brother.