What made you a boxing fan?

My grandpa (a WW2 vet) was a boxing fan. Followed the HW, LHW, and MW divisions. Loved Joe Louis. Imparted his love of the sport to my father, who has been a boxing fan all my life. I watched a ton of fights with my father as a kid. Still watch fights with him every time I see him — he’s coming out in a couple weeks, plan is to rewatch all three Eubank-Benn fights in a row one night.

I even have memory of watching Hagler-Hearns live with my father! I was a kid, but I remember how much he talked about it in the buildup, and how exciting it was.

and now I watch boxing with my kids. Such as it is, nature gave me all girls, but hey, one of them is real into watching fights with me, and that’s pretty awesome.

 

It was my Grandfather, also. My Grandfather and his collection of boxing films. I miss him a lot.

 

My Pop. He almost never missed a weekend TV fight when I was a kid so I watched along with him. We also used to work out together at the YMCA some, and they had a heavy bag with gloves in kind of a big storage closet and he showed me the basics of a 1-2 so I’d know how to defend myself.

I remember when he went to closed circuit fights like FotC and Ali-Foreman with his buddies and he’d say ‘you’re too young to go’ but he’d tell me all about it when he got home. And he took me to local amateur smokers, my first live boxing experiences.

Over the years as I grew up, he took me to Atlanta for Holyfield-Qawi I (still the greatest fight I’ve ever seen in person), to Tyson-Spinks (gyp of a main event, but on that trip also saw George Foreman, Azumah Nelson, Julian Jackson, Buster Douglas, Razor Ruddock, Carl Williams, Trevor Berbick, Hector Camacho and others) and to one of Larry Holmes’ second-career fights at a casino within driving distance.

He was much older when I texted him and said, ‘How about I order Mayweather-Pacquaio tonight and you come over to watch it with me.’ He brought wings and we watched together — the fight was a dud, but the time spent with my Pop was priceless.

The last two weekends we’ve texted each other about fights on ESPN to make sure the other knew, and we often text during TV fights (he’s in his mid-80s and the fact that he texts — with emojis no less — is funny as hell).

He grew up with Floyd Patterson as his favorite fighter and would tell me stories about stealing his parents’ keys and listening to his title fights on the car radio. (Laughed about how he missed one of the Liston fights because it was over before he could get the keys in the ignition.)

I owe it all to my Pop. It’s a bond we share and something special between us.