This weekend we are spoilt for choice with Channel 5, Sky and Boxnation all showing live boxing. It hasn't always been like this for British viewers as TV coverage 4 or so years ago was virtually at an all time low for me with the Froch v Taylor fight not being shown live being the lowest point. I also remember no TV company picking up Witter v Alexander for the WBC Light Welterweight title and I also remember no one showing JMM against Katsidis. Which was the lowest point for you guys?
Are you doing a course about boxing on tv? There can be no other reason for this amount of inane threads.
Before the 80s, TV boxing kind of sucked. Ali and the Heavyweights aside, unless they were fighting British opposition you never saw Zarate, Zamora, Jofre, Arguello, Pedroza, Benitez, Cervantes, Napoles, Cuevas, Griffith, Monzon or Foster...
TBooze. Most of the fighters didn't you mentioned didn't appeal to the mainstream, which is what UK TV play to. Put on Benn, Eubank, Hamed, Hatton, Khan, Bruno etc, yes it'll sell...but the names you mentioned no-one in the UK knows too much about...which is why they didn't get on our screens.
Booze is right there. Apart from domestic coverage we didn't get to see the big names on a regular basis unless it was really big or involved a British fighter. Sometimes if it was a carnival of champions show with Ali headlining you'd see something if you were lucky from the undercard. I remember seeing Monzon-Valdez 2 and Arguello-Escalera 2 but that's about it. First time i saw Benitez was the Leonard fight and it was years later before i actually saw Zarate-Zamora when people started selling videos. We had to make do with just reading the boxing mags for our info. This younger generation has been really lucky with the advent of the internet.
The reason Benn, Eubank et al became popular was because they got TV coverage in programmes such as Sportsnight, Midweek Sports Special and Second's Out. But that happened in the 70s too, because you are talking about British fighters. In the 80s, particularly with the introduction of 24 hour TV, ITV in particular started showing live American bills. Thus the boxing fan got to see the likes Chavez, Mayweather (Uncle Roger), Hearns, Barkley, Hill, Czyz and Williams, which had not happened before.
ITV did well with their Tyson pre jail coverage back in the day showing all of his fights (bar the Bruno fight) late night.
