i am on a boxing down

[mike john]

i first got seriously into boxing through reading boxing monthly. i went onto get cable, then sky sports ( setanta was part of the original virgin package ), obviously watching the terrestrial coverage and bought a few career sets on dvd. never having lived near a gym, i started a new job in bristol and trained at the empire abc ( sanigars gym ).

ive since cancelled sky sports, as i only subscribed for the boxing which, frankly doesnt justify the cost with what it offers, and i rarely pay for ppv's of the highest level, let alone these amir khan affairs. now that another terrestrial channel has closed its doors to the sport and setanta is on its bike, i envisage watching next to no live boxing for the forseeable future.
on top of which ive done my shoulder in a treat and havent trained in a good 6 months. :( ill get back to the gym when possible, but my interest in following the sport has wained to the point where im happy to go back to picking up the boxing monthly as pretty much my only intake for the sport ( along with forums like this ).

my own aspirations aside, i guess im not a hardcore fan like some of you lot, but im far from just a casual fan with a passing interest

[Chambers2]

I have been watching boxing for a good 25 years and cant remember a time i felt so down about the sport. Maybe it has a lot to do with the Haye fight falling through which i had tickets to but i think its more. I have slowly watch the sport fall away from public interest due to in general poor press coverage and lack of fights on open TV. Your average sport fan knows very little about the sport apart from Hatton or Calzaghe and a fighter like Haye who ticks all the right boxes to be a huge UK star seems to slip a lot of the time under the radar when he has to be one of the easiest fighters to market ever. With the constant cancallation of fights, mismatches and poor stoppages i understand why people are turned off the sport. I always watch whatever boxing is on the telly but recently didnt bother with FFN for the first time i can remember because i just couldnt be bothered. Now add this to Setanta having problems which effects their coverage (although Cotto-Clottey was great), ITV4 pulling out of boxing and the fact that Carl Froch wasnt even seen shown live i wonder where the sport is going. I love what Setanta do with the sport and enjoy the ITV4 bills but boxing needs to be on ITV or BBC more often for it to gain fans yet sports like canoeing are shown over boxing on the beeb. I few years back the BBC started showing a few Hatton, Calzaghe fights on a saturday afternoon the week after they happened and a promoter would be wise to try and do the same thing again to get fighters like Kel Brook, John Murray, Darren Barker, Darren Sutherland, Tyson Fury, George Groves etc more exposure hence increasing and interest in the sport. Yes i know a lot of the fighters i mentioned are still fighting mismatches but i am talking about their future fights. Ok my rant is over and as i said i'm not new to the sport i'm old school but down in the dumps, how do you feel?

Yeah I agree Boxing's wank at the moment.... due to all the reasons you've detailed.

I'm looking forward to the day when the internet is upto scratch and reliable enough to watch live streams, then the promoters can aire all their fights on the net and we can cut out the TV half-hearted TV channels once and for all

[banjo]

I have been watching boxing for a good 25 years and cant remember a time i felt so down about the sport. Maybe it has a lot to do with the Haye fight falling through which i had tickets to but i think its more. I have slowly watch the sport fall away from public interest due to in general poor press coverage and lack of fights on open TV. Your average sport fan knows very little about the sport apart from Hatton or Calzaghe and a fighter like Haye who ticks all the right boxes to be a huge UK star seems to slip a lot of the time under the radar when he has to be one of the easiest fighters to market ever. With the constant cancallation of fights, mismatches and poor stoppages i understand why people are turned off the sport. I always watch whatever boxing is on the telly but recently didnt bother with FFN for the first time i can remember because i just couldnt be bothered. Now add this to Setanta having problems which effects their coverage (although Cotto-Clottey was great), ITV4 pulling out of boxing and the fact that Carl Froch wasnt even seen shown live i wonder where the sport is going. I love what Setanta do with the sport and enjoy the ITV4 bills but boxing needs to be on ITV or BBC more often for it to gain fans yet sports like canoeing are shown over boxing on the beeb. I few years back the BBC started showing a few Hatton, Calzaghe fights on a saturday afternoon the week after they happened and a promoter would be wise to try and do the same thing again to get fighters like Kel Brook, John Murray, Darren Barker, Darren Sutherland, Tyson Fury, George Groves etc more exposure hence increasing and interest in the sport. Yes i know a lot of the fighters i mentioned are still fighting mismatches but i am talking about their future fights. Ok my rant is over and as i said i'm not new to the sport i'm old school but down in the dumps, how do you feel?

Yeah I agree Boxing's wank at the moment.... due to all the reasons you've detailed.

I'm looking forward to the day when the internet is upto scratch and reliable enough to watch live streams, then the promoters can aire all their fights on the net and we can cut out the TV half-hearted TV channels once and for all

Can't see it ever happening in the UK. We will dig up half the country, make a shocking mess of it, and then the project will be abandoned. Polish people arrive here looking to make money, then leave, saying they cannot live in some a backwards country.

That's the reason they are going home in droves anyway

[jspain]

im seriously considering not buying the khan ppv in a few weeks and ive bought every ppv thats been on since i got sky. the main event might be ppv worthy (and even thats very debatable) but there is not one fight on the undercard that is anywhere near ppv worthy. i know the khan fagan card was bad but at least we had an american bill on top of that.

a world title defence by a english fighter not been on live tv was not a good sign. and if by the end of the year we have little or no boxing at all on itv or bbc i dread to think where the sport is going. the fact that we are now getting 5 or 6 ppv events a year instead of one or two means that alot of the half decent fights are now on ppv. when will be the next time we have a proper world title fight involving a british fighter on bbc/itv or even normal sky again? certainly not in the next couple of years unless things come full circle again.

[Autobarn]

ee, them bloody poles. tek are money, tek are jobs, they send money home to there families. then bugger of back ome instead of givving owt back to this greet nation

i've been getting a bit fed up with boxing. to renew my interest i've been watching classic bantam and super bantam fights, some recent some a bit further back. found some amazing fights from japan involving japanese / thai fighters. my advice: watch the little asian and mex fighters, because to make good money they have to get into best vs best fights quite regularly, they throw a ton of shots and at the top level maintain a massive pace - at a high skill level.

[Poncey]

I feel the same way Mark. I don't even watch FNF anymore. I remember reading an excellent article by Hauser after DLH v Mayweather that stated Boxing was on the rise again.

Looking at the fights that have actually happened this year, I can't see it. Still too many fights aren't being made both domestically and internationally.

For the first time since 97 I'm watching more MMA that boxing.

Please God more decent fights.

[chinny]

I know what you mean. I was going to go to Haye-Wlad too. I even (like deadpan I think) booked flights and accomodation in Berlin when all the rumours pointed to the O2. Then I paid for the same again for Dusseldorf. So I've paid for two pairs of flights to different locations in Germany with the same airline on the same day (if that doesn't set off the terrorist alert I don't know what will) and I don't want either of them!

I also bought three tickets for Khan-Kotelnik, which will have to go back. All in all, a pretty depressing time.

The Calzaghe-Warren situation leaves a very bad taste in my mouth too.

I agree that the TV problem is bad. Like you Big mark I am huge fan of what setanta are doing from top to bottom. For Sky to be the only place broadcasting any boxing would be so bad as to be unthinkable. It would seriously hurt a lot of promotional companies and boxers.

However, I'm still basking in the somewhat fading glow from being ringside for Froch-Taylor a couple of months ago. We are going through a bad patch, but look at how excited we were not long ago before the 'big 3 fights':

http://forum.boxrec.com/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=99252

With the glass very much half full, the setanta situation is looking less dire than it was a week ago, and there are plenty of good fights out there, domestic and international, which seem to be in the pipeline. Keep the faith

[Eraserhead]

I feel exactly the same way. I can't remember boxing - especially in Britain - being as bad and dull as it is right now. The TV situation and the economic climate suggests this is only the start.

Someone pass me the Prozac.

[observer1]

Boxing is beyond a joke now. Probably forget about Boxing altogether soon, nothing but corrup, money-hungry and fraudulent buisness all together. Lies, Deceit.. Can go on and on

[sweetscience]

im also getting bored... im sick of watching 90/10 fights oppsed to 50/50... any boxer who has had over 10/15 fights should be banned from fighting journeymen...if they aint learnt there trade by then then its tough

[Twinkle Toes]

At least we have HS press release's to laugh our bollocks off at and cheer us up.

[Autobarn]

i will be on a boxing down until bernard hopkins retires

wait...he says he's through, he's finished with boxing (at least on boxingtalk)

i will be on a boxing down until bernard dunne fights rendall munroe for britain

i will be on a boxing down until fraaiiiink maloney dons on his union jack suit for big fights abroad (moore-martinez, munroe-nishioka)

i will be on aboxing down until frank wawarren brings back mismatches

[Quixall]

It's funny that you shold say this now, because i am having similar thoughts myself. What did it for me was the cancellation of the Haye fight, then Khan and now Mayweather and as daft as it sounds, i was pissed off that the Tyson Fury bout was cancelled aswell. I was really looking forward to the Haye and Khan fights and to think that Haye will now not get another title opportunity for some time is dissapointing to say the least. I'm like you, i try and watch all the non ppv boxing that i can and regularly tune in to setanta and sky for friday or saturday night boxing, aswell as the itv4 shows. I knew Setanta were in trouble, but i did'nt realise that itv4 were pulling out of boxing aswell. Where will be able to watch good domestic and European fights in the near future, without having to have satallite televison. I have had this conversation before about the BBC and it's obligation to show all sports to the public, but where boxing is concerned, they only seem interested in the amateur side of boxing, showing the ABA championships and the Olympics when they come around. There has to be more professional boxing on the BBC, because unlike ITV, we all pay for a license fee and so our tastes should be accomadated. It's true that boxing, in recent years, has been pushed to the sidelines, in terms of media exposure and public interest and this undoubtedly is because the top end of boxing, ie, the big names and big fights, are not available on terrestial televison. People can pay a subscription to sky and still have to pay extra to watch one of the marquee fights and that has definately affected the way the public view boxing, with many people simply not being able to afford to watch it. I can remember watching Tyson's early fights on the BBC on a sunday morning and you didn't know what the result was and so it was like watching it live and it has to get back to something resembling those days, because boxing is losing it's core support. If you have to pay through the nose to watch marquee fights, then less people will watch them and if less people watch them, then the media is less likely to cover them, so it becomes a viciuos circle. Today, you can ask the public who is the heavyweight champion of the world and they don't have a clue and that is where we are and it's very bad for the sport. Too expensive, not enough marquee fights, too many world champions, not enough media exposure, not enough fights being made that the public want to see and not enough easily acessible shows to watch on terrestial televison. The power balance needs to move back to the consumer and untill it does, then the boxing establishment will continue to serve up a sport that puts the pursuit of money, way ahead of the people who keep the sport alive, good old you and me.

I will still keeping watching it though

[exittored]

Yeah the Triple whammy of the Haye-wlad, Khan and May-Marquaz Fights being cancelled or Postponed put me on a Boxing Downer!

Boxing Seems to have Taken a Massive Nose dive since Hatton vs Pacman

I remember seeing that with 1000 other mostly non Boxing fans and no one payed any attention to the undercard but as soon as the Main Event came on everyone Stopped and started Watching and the atmosphere was absolutely Electric, unlike any other sport apart from Football maybe.

British Boxing has taken a few Knocks with the possible End of ITV Boxing which i thought had some Cracking Fights and of course Setanta Coverage

As for American Coverage, i blame HBO for trying to Push Boxer's who are as Dull as Ditchwater on the Public rather than going for exciting Boxer's and Fights, the week after Hatton-Pacman when everyone was Talking about Boxing we got the BOREFEST that was Dawson-Tarver and if that wasn't bad enough a few weeks later we got an even more StinkFest Fight in Berto-Urango. When you consider that Exciting attacking boxer's like Tavoris Cloud can't get HBO tv dates, there is a Massive Problem!

I just hope September, October, November and December provides us with some EXCITING MATCH-UPS both Domestically and Internationally.

[Asterix]

Wlad vs Chag this Saturday could be interesting. Darchinyan is fighting next month, as is Gamboa. Timothy Bradley vs Nate Campbell on the 1st of August.

It's a bit poor, but at least there's something. We'll have another Froch fight to look forward to before long.

[exittored]

Just to Cheer you up a little there are still some Fights to Look forward to Over the Next 4 WEEKS:

June 20
At Gelsenkirchen, Germany (ESPN Classic): Wladimir Klitschko vs. Ruslan Chagaev, 12 rounds, for vacant Ring magazine and Klitschko's IBF/WBO heavyweight title; Alexander Ustinov vs. Michael Sprott, 10 rounds, heavyweights; The Main Event Will Be Alot Better than People are Making Out imo

June 27
At Los Angeles (HBO): Victor Ortiz vs. Marcos Maidana, 12 rounds, for vacant WBA interim junior welterweight title; Chris John vs. Rocky Juarez, rematch, 12 rounds, for John's WBA featherweight title; 2 Potentially CRACKING FIGHTS

July 4
At Vienne, France: Anselmo Moreno vs. Mahyar Monshipour, 12 rounds, for Moreno's WBA bantamweight title. TRUST ME, COULD BE FIGHT OF YEAR!

At Hamburg, Germany: Alexander Dimitrenko vs. Eddie Chambers, 12 rounds, WBO heavyweight eliminator; Could be Interesting

July 11
At Sunrise, Fla. (Showtime): Joseph Agbeko vs. Vic Darchinyan, 12 rounds, for Agbeko's IBF bantamweight title; Antonio DeMarco vs. Anges Adjaho, 10 rounds, lightweights; Steve Cunningham vs. Wayne Braithwaite, 12 rounds, IBF cruiserweight eliminator; Yuri Romanov vs. Fernando Angulo, 12 rounds, for vacant IBF lightweight title. EASILY CARD OF THE YEAR, EVERY FIGHT COMPETITIVE and FILLED WITH ACTION

July 18
At Manchester, England: Andreas Kotelnik vs. Amir Khan, 12 rounds, for Kotelnik's WBA junior welterweight title. WILL BE A GREAT NIGHT IN MANCHESTER

[jspain]

i think what sums up the tv coverage for me is you subscibe to setanta for 21.99 euros a month and sky with sports is upwards of 40 or 50 euros.

most of the domestic stuff is on sky. if i asked you to name your fights of the year so far. what would they be ?

mosley - margarito
marquez - diaz
dobson - quigley
dunne - cordoba
cotto - clottey

4 out of them 5 were on setanta. sky show the most boxing and its on every week. sky show the most quantity but its setanta that have the quality.

what would your sky fight of the year so far. is there even one? the two rogan fights would get a mention but im struggling really. i might have missed out on some fights of the year.

i think on the worldwide scale there are fights to look forward to but the week to week stuff on sky especially is not coming up to scratch. sky used to show a fights of the year programme at the new year a couple of years ago. there was none last year basically because they would have struggled to fill it and this year is looking the same. it does not help when we then miss out on some of the attractive bills from abroad.

hatton against pacman was a massive fight of couse but it was only a couple of rounds.

it does not help when good fights are made and the antipication builds and then they fall by the wayside and thats been happening far too often lately.

[Chambers2]

I've put the 'Boxing Classics' programme (that's shown in the early hours on Channel 5) on series record, it throws up some excellent matches.

I went home and stuck one of the programmes on in my lunch hour, it turned out to be BIG George Foreman Vs Holyfield from 1991 (I didn't even know the 2 had fought ).......... and hence forth my faith in boxing has been restored. It's still the Greatest sport on the planet!

[Quixall]

like you Quix i will keep watching but where are the new fans of the sport going to come from? One of the main problems is the sport is now just as much a buisness as is a sport which to honest it always has been. the difference is now with the rise of PPV the people who have the power in sport take advantage of those who love it.

Like i said, until the consumer grabs back the power, then nothing will change. The people involved in promoting boxing are often not interested in the long term future of the sport, they are only interested in the amount of money they can make in the short term. Boxing is too expensive to watch, full stop. People pay good money to subscribe to sky or setanta and then pay extra to watch the quality fights and this is on top of the poll tax that is the BBC license fee. The only way that that boxing establishment will listen, is if the money starts to dry up, because people have decided to stop watching. The major problem, is that people know they are being ripped off, but want to see marquee fights, because it's how they get their pleasure, after working their nuts off through the week. If they decide not to pay the ppv fee, then they are denying themsleves something which they love, something that makes a difference to their lives and the cable or satellite companies know this and take advantage of it. But only when we stop tuning in, especially with the ppv events, will they get the message, stop taking the piss and offer exciting main events and undercards, with prices that are reasonable and attractive to the consumer. Boxing's other problem is that the younger generation are getting more interested in UFC and MMA, which appears to be more exciting and it's these casual sports fans that boxing needs, because the die-hards and anoraks don't make up enough of the audience. I think that the boxing establishment knows what they have to do, but they will only do it once the money has dried up and the audience's have shrunk in size, which by then could be too late.

[tonyevs]

I have a book where the author airs his concerns pretty much the same you have about the state of boxing ... it was written 1925

[Quixall]

I have a book where the author airs his concerns pretty much the same you have about the state of boxing ... it was written 1925

Hey Tony, we love a good moan, what can i say ?

[Quixall]

I have a book where the author airs his concerns pretty much the same you have about the state of boxing ... it was written 1925

Hey Tony, we love a good moan, what can i say ?

I THINK ITS MORE THAN A MOAN its just fed up people who love the sport waiting feeling short changed.

I think that sentiment is reflected in my posts big man

[finchy36]

I have a book where the author airs his concerns pretty much the same you have about the state of boxing ... it was written 1925

was that 19.25 last night or Tuesday?

Only joking Tone, I know, people will always worry and moan from generation to generation. I think a lot of the anger/passion on this thread though is because people are paying a lot of money yet sky still charge extra for so called marquee fights.

imo Khan is not yet worthy of ppv and it seems a lot of people agree. The whole world seems obsessed with making money no matter what the consequence - not just boxing - but then that's another argument for another forum and another day!

8)

[saad muhammad]

Hey mark, spend an evening with me at the York Hall
or somewhere in the London area and i'll soon get your
enthusiasm back for the game DD
There's still been some cracking fights this year already,
not mentioned were Berto/ Collazo & Mundine/ Geale
Nothing can be done about injuries in a two horse race.
Other sports ie, team sports just bring in someone else
to replace an injured player.
Plus we still have the unpredictability of exciting matches
being made, in the next couple of weeks some great fights
could be made and will put a different perspective on it.

[Punchy Joe]

Seems that every 1 in 2 big fights gets put back or called off through injury, every year it seems to happen more and more.
25 years ago there was no where near the pull outs their are now, FFS Larry Holmes went toe to toe with Ken Norton with a injured LEFT ARM for 15 fecking rounds. A few years back a fighter would train and fight with a minor injury instead of looking for any way to cry off.
I agree about PPV too, its just taking the piss now and i never buy anymore. Kotelnik V Khan is a good fight but its not worth £15 on top of my Sky sports subscription.
Just think you can watch Man Utd play Barcelona, arguably the 2 best teams in the world in the Champions league final on free TV, yet have to pay through the nose twice to watch an average Alphabet "world" title.