Who or What Got You Into Boxing ?

I got HBO for free in my college dorm room. I'd never been into sports before but my roommate was. I'd recently fallen in love with the writing of Ernest Hemingway, which was full of boxing; so when my roommate tuned in for Gatti vs Ward 1 I watched with him. I couldn't stop cheering at the top of my lungs. I jumped up and down, pumped my fist in the air, fell down and pounded on the ground. I don't remember when I'd ever been that excited before.

Around that time there was a celebrity boxing tournament on television. Me and my roommate watched that too. Tonya Harding was fighting Paula Jones. Tonya Harding was a trained Olympic athlete whereas Paula Jones was the President's mistress. Paula Jones was completely outclassed and taking the most ridiculous beating ever. She starts shaking her head and pleading with the ref. It's obvious she wants out, but Tonya Harding has to clock her one more time for good measure. I fell out of my bunk laughing, tears streaming down my face, holding my sides. That's when I learned that boxing could be funny as well as savage.

Then a little after that I got interested in a young heavyweight named Wladimir Klitschko. He was just so big and was destroying everybody while barely ever getting hit. I said to my friend watching him one time that it looked like he was wearing the wrong sized gloves. Then Brewster came along and knocked him out and I had to learn what it's like to watch an idol fall.

Just before that, the first Pacman vs Marquez fight happened and I got into the smaller weight classes. At first I was confused, like "What are these guys? Jockeys? Do they ride a heavyweight into the ring?" But then mayhem broke out in the ring. Pacquiao broke Marquez' nose and was doing his mini Mike Tyson imitation. Three knockdowns, blood everywhere, blood on the trunks, blood on the tape, blood on the ring, and blood on the ref, raining down on the front row, and Marquez got back up. He dominated for the next 9 rounds in one of the most thrilling comebacks of all time, and I've been a huge fan of both of those guys ever since.

 

it was obviously Ali given my age, nearly 53, so as I was growing up late 60s it was Clay wasn't it...

but my first fight memory and intrique was Chuvalo,

he was also featured in a Car Commercial with two Montreal Canadians greats, LaPointe & Lemaire memory serving where one could'nt quite figure getting his hockey stick in the loaded trunk of the car and Chuvalo grabs it off him and breaks it in half over his knee, looks at LaPointe as if to say well and what you going to do about it. and into the car they go. that was my first fascination with fighters.

 

As a young kid in the 70's watching a midweek programme called sportsnight it was on the bbc and had fighters like minter, stracey , green and many others

 

I was born in 91', so it was the Tyson-Holyfield ear biting that got me into boxing. I saw it in a newspaper. Then after that came Naseem Hamed.

 

My second youngest is 9 yrs old and about 2 years ago he saw Holyfield/Tyson (2) and he loved it . He is not really into boxing in a big way but has his favourites he will watch Tyson, benn, tsyzu and Ricky burns and after prizefighter likes audley

 

Reading an account of the Johnson and Burns fight in an old book about Australian sport when I was 11-12 years old. The book featured the background to the fight and a bit of Johnsons story and also featured Jack Londons "colourful" account of the fight itself. The old black and white photos fascinated me and after that I was hooked.

Being an Australian of course I was always a fan of Fenech and Harding and later on I watched "Champions Forever" and loved the 70's heavies and then the 90's came and I got to watch and appreciate Holyfield, De La Hoya, Jones Jnr, Trinidad etc etc.

 

McGuigan versus Pedroza and my grandad talking to me about his favourite - a certain guy called Jack Dempsey

 

1966. I was coming up to eleven years old and watched the second Muhammad Ali-Henry Cooper fight. I became an Ali fan from that moment.

 

Watching the documentary "We Were Kings" about the Rumble in the Jungle seeing Foreman smash the bag and being heralded as this unstoppable beast is what got me into it. Even tho Ali won, Foreman impressed me more for some reason, probably because I have this innate liking of punchers as opposed to boxers.

 

Growing up in the early '40s, idolizing all the amateur 'n pro fighters in the neighborhood. I was hooked when I first set foot in Stillmans Gym, in the midst of ATG's every place I looked.

 

Watching MAB get tool'd by Manny in 03.

 

My father was born in Pittsburgh during the 1920s, so a lot of what I heard as a kid was about Billy Conn and Fritzie Zivic, and Rocky Marciano. My mother, before she married my father, used to go to the fights in Los Angeles, so I heard a lot about Art Aragon and Lauro Salas, too. I was a huge Little Red Lopez fan from the time I was 7 or so; I remember being afraid when he fought Tury Pineda, who was undefeated at that time. Lots of tension around the house when he fought Chacon, because my mother was a Bobby Chacon fan.